[Commlist] ICA Pre-conference: Is there still a crisis of public communication? A tribute to Jay Blumler

Julie Firmstone is circulating this call for contributions for a 
pre-conference in Paris, 25 May 2022, which will be dedicated to the 
intellectual legacy of our former colleague, Professor Jay G. Blumler. 
Please submit abstracts or enquiries to the email address 
(blumlerpreconf /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(blumlerpreconf /at/ gmail.com)>. Deadline is 
31 January 2022.

*Pre-conference: Is there still a crisis of public communication? A 
tribute to Jay Blumler*

*/Hosted by: Center for Political Research at Sciences Po, University of 
Zurich, University of Leeds/*

/With sponsorship of the ICA/*//*/Political Communication and Global 
Communication and Social Change divisions./

*/Format : /*/Preconference; Half day/

*/Date : /*/Wednesday, May 25 , 2022/

*/Location:/*/Provisionally, Paris Institute of Political Studies 
(Sciences Po Paris)/

*/Time : /*/9:00 AM to 1:00 PM/

*/Former ICA President Professor Jay G. Blumler was instrumental in 
establishing political communication as a recognised academic field in 
Britain in the 1960s, and his writing spanned Global Communication and 
Political Communication./*

*//*

/His pioneering work with Denis McQuail, in which they applied uses and 
gratifications theory to understand how voters responded to television 
election coverage injected a degree of methodological rigour and 
normative insight to the study of political communication that 
characterised his many subsequent books and articles. Jay continued to 
lecture and publish until shortly before his death in 2021. /

/In 1995 Blumler and Gurevitch described a ‘crisis of Public 
Communication’. This comprised six main components: /

/i) a degree of de-politicisation, due to the centre-stage movement of 
politically independent media into the political process, encouraging an 
incursion of media personalities into politics; /

/ii) dissemination of an over-supply of oxygen for cynicism; /

/iii) projection of a highly pejorative, over-simplified and in many 
cases probably unfair stereotype of the standard politician as someone 
who cares only for power and personal advancement; /

/iv) that less and less of the political communication diet serves the 
citizen role—due to a predominant presentation of politics as a game (at 
the expense of coverage of policy issues) and the provision of 
ever-shorter soundbites; /

/v) the catapulting of the press into a position of surrogate 
opposition, imbuing much reporting with qualities of challenge, 
criticism and exposure at the expense of giving credit where it is due; /

/vi) the emergence of a “chronic state of partial war” between 
politicians and journalists. /

**

*In celebration of Jay’s remarkable intellectual legacy the ICA 
divisions of Political Communication and Global Communication and Social 
Change invite colleagues from around the world to address the question, 
/Is there still a crisis of public communication/? This preconference 
was conceived to offer answers from a range of perspectives and spaces. *

Established scholars whose work has engaged with Blumler’s scholarship 
are invited to provide research-driven reflections upon the 
pre-conference theme, with particular attention to the following sub themes:

**

**The condition of the democratic public sphere* *

Blumler’s starkly-stated critique was that ‘communications as presently 
organised is sucking both the substance and the spirit out of the 
politics it projects’. For him, this amounted to a systemically-rooted 
crisis of democratic citizenship. We invite contributors to discuss the 
extent to which the concept of ‘crisis’ describes the current condition 
of the public sphere; whether we might now be in what Philip Schlesinger 
has called a ‘post-public sphere’; and what, if anything, might be done 
to address the normative shortcomings of the empirical public sphere.

**The condition of public service broadcasting* *

Blumler looked to public service broadcasting to offer an alternative to 
the most egregious failings of the commercial mass media. He argued that 
‘For all of its weaknesses as an institutional model, the BBC’s 
embeddedness within values of public service has led to profoundly 
civilizing consequences’. However, he went on to catalogue and critique 
the ‘gradual dilution of the civic mission of the public service 
broadcaster’. We invite contributors to consider whether the PSB model 
can help to revitalise democratic citizenship. If it can, what form 
should that model now take? If not, what is the alternative to the 
principles of PSB?

**

**The role of social media* *

Blumler described social media as possessing a ‘vulnerable potential’ to 
improve public communication – and went on to outline a strategy for 
making this happen. We invite contributors to explore that potential as 
well as its manifest vulnerability. We are equally interested in 
contributions from those wishing to argue that the maturation of 
‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff 2019) and ‘datafication’ (Meijas and 
Couldry, 2019) are fundamentally altering what constitutes public 
communication.

_Two types of in-person participation are invited: _

ØProspective ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS should submit an abstract of up to 
500 words elaborating their perspective. Submissions will be selected by 
the conference committee on the basis of originality and relevance to 
the conference theme, and to ensure a diversity of viewpoints and 
geographic origins. Up to nine roundtable participants will be selected, 
and will each be given 5 minutes at the start of the roundtable to 
outline their perspective.

ØPhD researchers and early career scholars will be invited to submit an 
abstract of up to 500 words for a POSTER PRESENTATION addressing the 
preconference theme through original theory and research. Up to 15 
poster presenters will be selected and will be matched with an 
experienced scholar participating in the event for one to one discussion 
of their project.

Abstracts, indicating which type of participation is requested 
(roundtable or poster), should be emailed to the organisers at 
(blumlerpreconf /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(blumlerpreconf /at/ gmail.com)> . The 
deadline for receipt of abstracts is *31 January, 2022*. Accepted 
participants will be notified by 28 February 2022.

Selected poster presenters will be expected to provide a paper of up to 
4000 words by April 29, 2022. A prize will be awarded for the best paper 
as determined by the organising committee.

**

*Two travel bursaries *of up to UK £200 will be available to qualifying 
participants from outside of (World Bank defined) high-income countries. 
These are sponsored by the University of Leeds School of Media and 
Communication. Details of how to apply for a travel bursary will be 
provided to accepted poster presenters upon notification of acceptance 
of their paper. Bursary recipients will have their registration fee for 
the preconference waived.

Provisionally, all presentations will be considered for inclusion in a 
special issue of a leading journal in the field*. *

Registration will be via the ICA website and will open in March 2022. 
Non-participating delegates will be accepted within the capacity 
limitations of the venue. A nominal fee for registration is anticipated 
and will be announced at the ICA website. We anticipate providing a 
recording of the roundtable discussion for later viewing online.

**

*Organisers: *

Stephen Coleman, University of Leeds

Frank Esser, University of Zurich

Julie Firmstone, University of Leeds

Katy Parry, University of Leeds

Chris Paterson, University of Leeds

Thierry Vedel, Sciences Po

*Cited: *

Blumler JG (2018) The crisis of public communication 1995-2017. /Javnost 
– The Public/ 25(1–2):83–92.

Couldry, N. and Mejias, U.A., (2019) Data colonialism: Rethinking big 
data’s relation to the contemporary subject. /Television & New Media/, 
20(4), pp.336-349.

Schlesinger, P (2020) After the post-public sphere. /Media, Culture & 
Society/, /42/(7-8), pp.1545-1563.

Zuboff S (2019) /The Age of Surveillance Capitalism/. London: Profile Books.

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