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[Commlist] CfP - ICA post-conference on The impact of public relations and promotional communication on human rights, inequalities and social justice: Interdisciplinary reflections and future directions

Sat Dec 02 17:45:09 GMT 2023






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'The impact of public relations and promotional communication on human rights, inequalities and social justice: Interdisciplinary reflections and future directions'

ICA 2024 Post-Conference 25 June 2024, Tuesday 25 June, 09:30-17:00, Gardens Point Campus, Room P419
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane

Division Sponsors: Public Relations and Popular Media and Culture
Call for Papers

Over the past decades, interest has grown in the importance of public relations and other forms of promotional communication for both dominant groups and activist movements resisting domination and promoting change. In the context of promotional culture (Davis, 2013), detailed and nuanced analyses of everyday promotional practices appear in a wide range of scholarly fields. A wide range of interdisciplinary insights (e.g. political economy, humanitarian communication, cultural studies, queer theory, feminist theory, post-colonial theory, critical race theory) have provided new ways of interrogating the power exercised by promotional professions in these contexts. These detailed analyses of the promotional professions’ political, economic and socio-cultural impact, embrace theories and empirical sites that extend our thinking far beyond functional deconstructions of organisational practice in the global North and West. They reorient our scholarship to consider how promotion can be used flexibly, in a range of settings and using a range of tools, for collective rather than individual ends – giving voice to subaltern groups and supporting their struggles (Chaidaroon & Hou, 2021; Dutta, 2016), as well as providing agency in global crises such as climate change (Munshi and Kurian, 2021). Nonetheless, opportunities still exist to enrich and develop existing work by adopting a more interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. Conversations about public relations and promotional practices between colleagues with different disciplinary underpinnings (e.g. public relations and humanitarian communication; critical consumption studies and environmental communication) have the potential to expand the theoretical and empirical topographies of our investigations.

In this post-conference, we aim to extend the potential of existing research by fostering productive, interdisciplinary conversations between scholars from across media and communications who have an interest in the influence of public relations and other promotional professions on struggles over rights, inequalities and social justice. Papers will respond to the main conference theme and align with recent calls to adopt a more human-centred and socially impactful approach to research (Ciszek, Place, & Logan, 2022; Munshi & Kurian, 2020; Waisbord, 2020). We invite papers that engage critically with PR and other promotional industries, tools and practices, as well as the ambivalence that promotion introduces both for those who claim rights and recognition, and for those who try to preserve their own power and privilege. We welcome submissions from scholars at all stages of their career, a wide spectrum of disciplinary perspectives, as well as contributions that focus on marginalised locations and populations, and forms of promotion that have received limited attention from scholars thus far. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions: 1. What role can PR and promotional practice play in making sense of and healing the widespread suffering of human and non-human beings? 2. What tensions and contradictions characterise the ways in which PR and promotional tools are used to pursue human rights, social justice and equality? 3. What methodological challenges might an orientation towards human rights, inequalities and social justice bring for research on PR and promotional communication? 4. How can scholars of PR and promotion reconcile the contemporary ‘wicked problems’ that underpin current global crises, with the theoretical tools at their disposal? What new theories and methods are needed to address these crises? 5. What can a more robust theoretical and empirical ‘conversation’ between scholars of public relations and promotional communication offer, in the pursuit of more impactful, justice-oriented scholarship? 6. In what ways do PR and promotional theories shed light on contemporary crises, and how can the empirical reality of contemporary crises extend our theoretical thinking? 7. Within a socio-political landscape characterized by acute polarization that makes dialogic, deliberative communication difficult, what can critical theory offer to scholars of PR and promotional communication? 8. How can PR and promotional research and practice address the structural inequalities and systematic issues that prevent the fulfilment of human rights across different contexts (e.g., environmental crisis, health care, disaster management)? 9. How can PR and promotional communications leverage/navigate the advantages of digital technology, tools, and platforms to advance rights, equality and social justice, while not losing sight of the entrenched digital divisions across different socio-cultural groups? 10. What (new) insights can a critical, human-centred approach to PR and promotional communication theory and practice provide about our collective (in)humanity in the digital age?
Abstract submission and notification of acceptance
Abstracts of 500 words should be submitted to the conference email: (PromoPostCon2024 /at/ gmail.com) by January 26, 2024. Submissions should include author names, affiliations, and the contact information for the corresponding author. Acceptance notifications will be provided by February 23, 2024 and the full programme will be released on 26 April 2024. Any questions about the post-conference or submission may be directed to the conference email, (PromoPostCon2024 /at/ gmail.com)

Organisers: Lee Edwards, London School of Economics and Political Science, (l.edwards2 /at/ lse.ac.uk) E. Ciszek, UT Austin, (eciszek /at/ utexas.edu) Jenny Hou, Queensland University of Technology, (jenny.hou /at/ qut.edu.au)
Kate Fitch, Monash University, (kate.fitch /at/ monash.edu)

Cost: USD $50 / AUS$75
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