[Commlist] cfp: Sports Communication in Transition

*Call for Abstracts *
Conference of the ECREA Temporary Working Group “Communication and Sport”
*“Sports Communication in Transition” *
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
(conference will be held onsite with inclusion of 1 online panel)

*November 9 - 10, 2023*

The myriad technological, economic, and social changes that have been 
going on in
contemporary societies have had a dramatic impact on sports communication,
bringing new issues to deal with and new actors coming into what was 
previously in a
European context considered to be mainly a domain of journalism. In this 
conference,
hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague 
on November
9 - 10, 2023, the ECREA Temporary Working Group on Communication and Sport
calls for papers exploring the transition of sports communication from 
various
perspectives. We would like to help expand the contemporary research on 
topics
from different scholarly fields like media studies, cultural studies, 
sports journalism
studies and sports strategic and PR communication, and sports audience 
studies, not
necessarily only from Europe.
The conference will feature one online panel that will allow 
participation of a select
number of researchers who are unable to travel to Prague.
With regard to the overarching topic of the conference, here are many 
issues that
have arisen in recent years, including:

  *   the massive development of so called in-house or team media, which
    in combination with direct usage of social media and many access
    restrictions, partially enforced by COVID-19 pandemics, but welcomed
    by major sports organisations, resulted in sports journalists
    struggling to find an original and interesting story more than ever;
  * the strategic and often performative use of new media platforms by
    hitherto marginalized individuals or groups in sport;
  * the cases of cross of interest, when underpaid journalists have to
    start with moonlighting at PR positions;
  * the wide reach and independence of successful athletes with their
    own channels (specially social media);
  * the increase of sports bloggers that was enabled by the
    technological development when everyone can create their successful
    website or podcast and enrich the sports journalistic field from its
    peripheries, sometimes even heading directly to its centre,
    reversing existing power balance;
  * the discussions whether sports journalists and athletes should or
    should not speak up when for example the sports events are organised
    by countries where human rights have been repeatedly violated and
    their leaders only want to whitewash their reputation, or female
    athletes or spectators are not allowed to participate;
  * the audiences (e.g., increasingly fragmented sports media
    repertoires in high-choice media environments and massive
    uncertainty about audience's expectations of sports media content)


This list is not exclusive, and we call for papers which in a broad 
sense deal with
shifts in sports communication, including both theoretical and 
analytical perspectives
on the tensions, conflicts, many dilemmas and negotiations involved, 
focusing on the
sports communication creators, the sports media content itself or its 
audiences.
*We invite abstracts between 300-500 words (excluding references) 
submitted in
English language by June 11, 2023 via email to the main organiser Dr. 
Veronika
Macková ((veronika.mackova /at/ fsv.cuni.cz) 
<mailto:(veronika.mackova /at/ fsv.cuni.cz)>)*. The submission should be
anonymized.

The abstracts can be both for individual papers and panel proposals. 
Each panel
proposal must include an abstract of the cover topic and the titles of 
4-5 involved
papers with the names of the authors. Each paper in the panel needs to be
presented by people from different universities. Please indicate clearly 
whether the
abstract is for individual paper or a panel proposal.

To support the integration of as many scholars as possible, we will hold 
approx. 5
onsite panels and 1 online panel for the colleagues who have 
difficulties travelling to
Prague on the dates of the conference. Please indicate clearly whether the
abstract is for onsite or online presentation. Authors will be notified 
about
acceptance by July 15, 2023.


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