[Commlist] CfP iCS Symposium: Social Movements and Parties in a Fractured Media Landscape

Social Movements and Parties in a Fractured Media Landscape

Cosmos (The Centre for Social Movement Studies), Scuola Normale 
Superiore, Florence, Italy, 1-2 July 2019

Deadline for abstracts:  15 March 2019. Abstracts/biographies/contact 
details should be sent to mailto:(dan.mercea.1 /at/ city.ac.uk).
A selection of papers presented at the symposium will be published in a 
special issue of the journal Information, Communication & Society (iCS). 
More info: 
http://cosmos.sns.it/news/call-for-papers-social-movements-and-parties-in-a-fractured-media-landscape/.


This two-day symposium held under the auspices of the journal 
'Information, Communication & Society' (iCS) considers the shifting 
terrain of contemporary democratic politics. Over the course of this 
decade, a wave of popular discontent swept across much of the world, 
stoked by the financial crisis, the ensuing austerity and deep 
disenchantment with political institutions in both liberal democracies 
and autocracies. Social movements channelled and articulated aspirations 
for greater democratic accountability and participation, more equitable 
economic policies, greater concern for social welfare and climate 
change. Against a secular decline in party membership, voter turnout and 
institutional trust, movements have rekindled a participatory imaginary 
challenging the status quo of many democratic countries.
Criticized for a supposed inability to enact the political and social 
change they advocated, social movements were harbingers of a new 
political vehicle, the movement party. The rise and electoral success of 
party movements-from Podemos in Spain, to Cinque Stelle in Italy, Jobbik 
in Hungary, Momentum in the UK or La Republique en Marche in 
France-captured aspirations for progressive change as well as anger and 
anxieties about globalisation, migration and the socio-economic and 
cultural upheaval that such processes have wrought. Occupying the 
breadth of the ideological spectrum-from the far right to the radical 
left-these movements put forward a radical criticism of political or 
media institutions, advocating participatory as well as populist 
reformulations of notions of citizenship, civic practices and 
organisational structures. Against the odds, they have scaled up, 
endured and have the potential to become entrenched despite the 
initially limited resources available to them. Notwithstanding their 
ideological differences, digital media appear to have provided important 
opportunities for the emergence of techno-populist 'connective' 
movements and parties in media systems largely unfavourable to them, 
thereby posing renewed challenges to incumbents.

Considering the above, the symposium will grapple with such questions 
as: what does the rising prominence of social and/or party movements 
mean for democracy? What are the consequences of their rise for 
representative democracy? What explains their presence on both the left 
and the right of the political spectrum? How does their digital media 
use bear on their organisational structures and cultures or their 
relationship with the media?
The symposium invites scholars and other informed observers to present 
papers discussing how over the last decade, social movements, party 
movements and other collective actors emerging in the fractured 
contemporary media landscape have produced knowledge, learn and develop 
new or overhaul existing participatory cultures and techno-populist 
identities; congeal competitive political agendas that challenge 
established political positions; rekindle trust and even faith in 
political leadership and democratic governance; (re)shaped 
(un)conventional citizenship norms, practices and action repertoires, 
harnessing affordances of self-publication technologies, data analytics 
and news media values to maximize their visibility, appeal and reach 
while also at times critiquing the dominant commercial logics of media 
and social media companies.

Building on these considerations, we encourage submissions that address 
but are not limited to the following aims:

. Discuss media strategies and/or tactics of social and/or party 
movements and individual activists, how they relate to ongoing 
transformation of media systems, shifting media diets and practices that 
are increasingly dominated by the use of digital and social media; . Map 
the use of digital technologies in social and/or party movements, the 
extent to which it inflects on organisational networks, structures and 
cultures and whether these depart from late-modern and pre-crisis models 
of political organisation;  . Consider how support for social and/or 
party movements is articulated publicly in squares, on social platforms, 
through partisan outlets, in mainstream media or combinations thereof 
and potential reasons for them;
. Investigate the language use of social and/or party movements-and 
responses to it by institutions and various section of the 
public-particularly as it challenges deliberative norms or if it is 
associated with disruptive communication techniques such as 
click-baiting, trolling, spoofing, making use of disinformation or 
misinformation;
. Reflect on the conversion of some movements into parties, the tensions 
emerging between the grassroots and the leadership once social and/or 
party movements enter institutions and the extent to which digital media 
may mitigate or exacerbate such conflicts;
. Investigate knowledge transfer and learning processes that transform 
movements, their support base, organization or goals and the role of 
digital media in such processes; . Propose ethical methodological 
innovations especially through the deployment of trace data gathering 
tools that can facilitate access to and rapport with hard-to-reach, 
research-apprehensive movement actors like far-right movement parties;
. Develop innovative qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods 
techniques to explore the use of digital media within social and/ or 
party movements; . Reflect on the bearing of (digital) media and 
communication strategies and tactics on the electoral success of social 
and/or party movements in local, national or European elections;
.  Explore contrasts in the popular mobilization and/or electoral 
success of populist party movements on the right and the left while 
contemplating the contribution that digital and social media made to it.
We invite 500-word abstracts outlining empirical, theoretical or 
policy-oriented papers that address these or cognate topics. The 
abstract should point to study conclusions. It should be accompanied by 
a 100-word biography of the presenter(s) together with contact details. 
Abstracts/biographies/contact details should be emailed to Dan Mercea 
((dan.mercea.1 /at/ city.ac.uk)).

All papers presented at the symposium will receive comments from a 
discussant. Following the symposium, paper authors will be invited to 
submit their manuscripts for publication in a special issue of the 
journal Information, Communication & Society.



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