[ecrea] ICA Pre-Conference: Global Media and Human Rights

ICA Pre-Conference: Global Media and Human Rights

May 23 (1/2 day) & 24, 2018

Off-Site Venue: Autoklub ČR, Opletalova 29, 110 00, Praha 1

Conference Registration Fee: $35.00 USD

Deadline for abstract submissions is 31 January 2018

The preconference is organized by the Leading Research Environment, 
“Global Media Studies and the Politics of Communication”, based at the 
Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. The Leading 
Research Environment has a focus on human rights and the media, and has 
been hosting prominent guest professors focusing on socio-political and 
cultural dimensions of mediation.
Sponsoring ICA Divisions
ERIC (Ethnicity in Race and Communication); Political Communication; 
Environmental Communication; Global Communication and Social Change; 
Philosophy, Theory and Critique

Confirmed Speakers
Prof. Lilie Chouliaraki, The London School of Economics
Prof. Silvio Waisbord, George Washington University
Prof. Kate Nash, Goldsmiths - University of London
Dr. Ekaterina Balabanova, University of Liverpool

Media and communication studies, with its history of linking human and 
communication rights at crucial 20th century junctions, has a key role 
in promoting human rights in the 21st century. The media cannot only 
boost human rights consciousness by exposing their violations, but they 
can inform civic action on unprecedented scales and mobilize 
humanitarian intervention. On the flip side, media can (and do) injure 
human rights through desensitization, where viewers are turned into 
voyeurs of exotic victimization. Even more ubiquitous bruising of rights 
is sustained through the pervasive use of surveillant technologies, 
which bring with them social and historical contingencies.
Against this backdrop, this pre-conference is primarily based upon the 
question of how media and communication studies has addressed and can 
better address questions of justice, inequality and human rights in the 
current conjuncture of contested flows and forces? To what extent has 
the potential inherent in the multi-disciplinarity of media and 
communication studies toward this goal been utilized or exhausted? We 
consider civil, political, economic, social, environmental and cultural 
rights in relation to media and communications, and intend to bring in 
fresh perspectives on dynamics that underlie representation, production, 
consumption as well as reception ends on a historically and spatially 
expansive continuum.  “Rights conflicts” constitute a key node here. Are 
certain human rights positionings used as arguments for the violation of 
others and Others? This pertains, for instance, to conflicts between the 
media and communications-centred right to freedom of expression on the 
one hand, and cultural/religious rights, on the other.
“The media” here are understood in their polysemic meanings: 
institutions, corporate bodies, platforms, technologies, interfaces and 
a vast array of communication venues from mobile apps to urban-space 
mediations through ads, billboards and walls. The same degree of 
multitude applies, historically, to the human rights discourse and 
literature, where human rights and communication rights, despite the 
underlying normative grounds that bind them together, are considered as 
distinct concepts, thus separate areas of analysis and research, 
disciplinarily ranging from legal studies to moral philosophy to media 
ethics.  As a “rights” framing, in both discursive and practical terms, 
is intrinsically and increasingly linked with mediated voice in the 
current communication milieu, this preconference aims and aspires to 
host provocative debates on the state of the art on such issues and 
perspectives in media and communication research.
Call for Papers: The preconference organizers invite submissions that 
scrutinize the persistent and emergent intersections between media and 
human rights in relation to sociocultural, political, economic, and 
environmental dynamics. What roles do, for instance, citizen journalism, 
and media witnessing play for strengthening human rights in the diverse 
contexts of communicational and spatial crossroads? How, in relational 
terms, do social movements, national governments and international 
organizations weigh in the furthering of human rights, and in what ways 
do media and communication (technologies) intervene and what affordances 
do they bring in? In what domains of legal and cultural interventionism 
do human rights organizations collaborate with media on digital 
platforms? The overall objective is to contribute to knowledge and 
debates on the crucial ties between human rights and the media in a 
globalizing and digitalizing world. Both the challenges and 
opportunities (e.g. mediated humanitarian intervention vis-à-vis the 
question of desensitization of audiences to suffering) presented by such 
macro dynamics are considered.
The preconference is intended to be of interest primarily to media and 
communications researchers from a diverse variety of backgrounds and 
disciplinary orientations. Due to the highly inter- and 
trans-disciplinary nature of its theme, we also invite submissions from 
neighboring disciplines as well as from activist networks and the 
creative sector. We particularly encourage creative and experimental 
formats and interventions such as fragments from short films, 
installations and other genres of critical textual/visual mediations.
Potential topics include but are not limited to:
•	Communication rights
•	Racial/ethnic/gendered/sexual politics and positionalities •	Cultural 
politics, neoliberalism and the rise of the far-right
•	Social movements
•	Environmental communication and rights
•	Popular culture and resistance
•	The media and social justice
•	Media studies, ‘rights’ discourses and intersectionality
•	Social media, human rights and activism •	Media strategies
•	War, terrorism and surveillance
•	Migration
•	Humanitarianism

Selection will be based on abstract submission (min 250 words, max 500 
words). The deadline for abstract submissions is 31 January 2018. The 
decision on accepted proposals will be announced by February 15, 2018. 
Accepted participants will circulate short position papers prior to the 
preconference (deadline 30 April, 2018).
All abstracts must be written in Word, and include the following 
information at the top of the page: (1) name, (2) position/title, (3) 
affiliation, and (4) paper title. In the abstracts, please specify (1) 
the thematic focus of the proposed contributions and (2) links to the 
preconference scope.

Please email abstracts to Christian Christensen 
((christian.christensen /at/ ims.su.se)) AND Miyase Christensen 
((miyase.christensen /at/ ims.su.se)). In the subject line please write: “ICA 
preconference submission (your last name)”.

Organizing committee: Christian Christensen, Miyase Christensen, Anna 
Roosvall, Kristina Riegert (Stockholm University)


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