[ecrea] Cfp_ECREA Communication History Workshop

Our Group First! – Historical perspectives on Minorities/Majorities, 
Inclusion/Exclusion, Centre/Periphery in Media and Communication History

“Our group first!” A familiar chant, which echoes past times in 
contemporary voices has recently gained momentum in the political 
discourse in Europe and the United States with resonance all over the 
globe. The claim and focus of such demands is however not new, but 
rather restorative with illustrious historical predecessors. Throughout 
history, communication has always been used to disseminate stereotypes, 
narratives and social myths aimed to the end of creating clear 
distinctions between a superior “us” and the “other”. Drawing lines 
between “us” and “them” is functional in negotiating senses of community 
and belonging and goes way beyond its political use. However, inclusion 
always harbors exclusion as well and the identity of groups also demarks 
their boundaries. For this workshop the ECREA Communication History 
Section invites scholarly presentations to shed light on questions of 
inclusion/exclusion, minorities/ majorities and centre/periphery in
communication.
The goal is to understand such practices throughout a variety of 
historical and cultural settings and to learn from the past for 
contemporary challenges. The workshop allows for a scope ranging from 
the macro level of national or supranational societies, to very peculiar 
particularities of social groups and issue communities. The workshop is 
also interested in work that helps to deconstruct or re-evaluate 
assumptions about minorities/majorities, exclusion/inclusion, 
centre/periphery in a variety of contexts and as they are constructed or 
stabilized in academic work. Submissions dealing with the topics below 
are specially welcomed, even though the workshop will be opened to 
papers dealing with other aspects of the relation between media, 
minorities and majorities.

Minorities through the eyes of the Majorities and vice versa
In different historical locations the media have claimed to reflect 
societies in which they operate, disseminating cultural and social 
values that are accepted by the social structure in place, contributing 
to the imagination of community. In many cases this has led the media to 
focus their attention on majorities, while minorities are mostly ignored 
or represented in a negative fashion. Many authoritarian regimes, for 
example, have used all sorts of communication technologies, from posters 
and literature to broadcasting and newspapers, to promote fear and hate 
against minorities while exalting the qualities of those who are said to 
be the true patriots.
The concern about how minority groups are represented in public 
communication and how they engage in media production has deserved 
academic attention with the publication of books and journal issues 
dealing mostly with how mainstream media treat disabled citizens and 
gender, ethnic and religious minorities, migrants or refugees. We are 
interested in submissions addressing the logics, motives and uses of 
communicative constructions of normality and deviance, homogenization of 
cultural norms, dealing with heterogeneous concepts of life, alteration 
and hybrid identities. The workshop will focus on the creation of 
different types of minority groups as in-groups and out-groups, the 
alteration of their positions, identities and histories.

Different by choice
Differentiation and distinction are important ingredients for identity 
work. We are interested in communication phenomena and styles, which 
aimed at differentiating perspectives and creating alternative 
communities (e.g. hackers, tech-nerds) or establish alternative cultural 
scenes (e.g religious groups such as the Amish). This ranges from 
subcultures to the doing identity of political, LGBT, or activist groups 
and the conflicts and struggles they engaged in. Research is invited, 
which analyses special media formats produced by or addressing specific 
niches in the “small life-worlds of modern man” or highlight specific 
(protest) campaigns or identity management practices of such groups. 
Also representations of such minorities by choice through the lens of 
majorities, the mainstream media or popular culture are welcomed.

Inclusion and exclusion Minorities are often excluded from possibilities 
of communication that are taken for granted and offered to majorities. 
Policy makers and commercial driven companies often consider as 
unprofitable bringing communications in unpopulated areas which leads to 
the exclusion of specific groups of people or specific region. Moreover, 
people tend to self-exclude themselves from too difficult, too 
expensive, and too complicated forms of communication. The workshop 
welcomes contributions on the history of communication divides (analogue 
and digital), and histories of political or business practices aiming to 
exclude groups of potential users.
Minority Media, Majority Practices
With the decline of mass communication and the slow disappearance of 
large audiences the lines between minorities and majorities get blurred 
when it comes to reception practices and habits. The discussion on how 
majorities and minorities use communication (technologies) and how they 
are represented on the media should also take into account the role of 
alternative media that, in many different historical contexts, have been 
created and operated by minorities. While cases like the Jewish press 
comes immediately to mind, feminist magazines and community radio 
stations are also examples of how different groups have used the media 
to promote their ideas and ideologies among fragmented audiences and 
compartmentalized collective identities. Many of these media played a 
role in in-group identity construction, frequently transcending borders 
and linking transnational audiences. The use of technologies that has 
widely disappeared or retracted to small niches or the nostalgic rediscov!
 ery of
past media devices that are considered minoritarian will also be discussed.
Centre and periphery Majorities are often at the centre and minorities 
at the periphery of infrastructures and networks. While at the centre 
the flow of communication is more intense and the speed of connections 
is higher, at the peripheries connections can be unstable and less 
reliable. Nevertheless, peripheries are also places where unexpected and 
minoritaran uses of media and communication emerge. In different 
historical periods, cities such as Athens, Rome, Venice, London, and New 
York have been at the centre of communication flows while places distant 
from the centre have to deal with their peripheral status. Case studies 
and papers dealing with the consequences of being central or peripheral 
in communication will be welcomed.

“Us and them” through the history of communication studies Another field 
of inquiry the workshop is interested in is the role of academic 
research in observing and thus preserving logics of inclusion and 
exclusion through academic work. How do and did media and communication 
scholars normalize some media practices and pathologize others? What was 
the role of media and communication scholarship in stabilizing social 
in-groups while alienating outsiders (e.g. through links to political 
propaganda, psychological warfare and similar manipulation strategies or 
corporate advertising)? Which myths and narratives are cultivated by 
media research and how do prevalent concepts, eligible methods and 
accessible sources shape and foster certain understandings of media 
history, highlighting specific groups while sidelining others, thus 
creating an implicit invisible mainstream? Is thus a biased 
understanding of majority and minority groups at a given created in 
communication history? Which strategies could be used to deconstruct and 
re-evaluate e!
 xisting
assumptions in the light of gender, postcolonial or non-Western 
perspectives? How can subgroups hidden in the alleged communication 
mainstream be made visible? How are in-groups and out-groups (mainstream 
and outsider perspectives) constructed within the academic field of 
(historical) communication research?

Abstracts of 500 words (maximum) proposing empirical case studies as 
well as theoretical or methodological contributions should be submitted 
no later than 29 April 2017. Proposals for full panels (comprising 4 or 
5 papers) are also welcome: these should include a 250-word abstract for 
each individual presentation, and a 300-word rationale for the panel. 
Send abstracts to: (sipos.balazs /at/ btk.elte.hu). Authors will be informed 
regarding acceptance/rejection for the conference no later than 15 May 
2017. Early career scholars and graduate students are highly encouraged 
to submit their work. Please indicate if the research submitted is part 
of your thesis or dissertation project. The organizers will aim to 
arrange for discussants to provide an intensive response for graduate 
students projects.



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