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Apologies for cross-posting or repear posting: Signs towards health: understanding and misunderstanding in health care communication CALL FOR PAPERS: 9TH WORLD CONGRESS OF IASS/AIS COMMUNICATION: UNDERSTANDING / MISUNDERSTANDING Panel to be held on June 11-17, 2007 at the University of Helsinki, and at International Semiotics Institute at Imatra. The congress will take place in the two locations as follows: Helsinki: Monday–Wednesday, 11-13 June 2007; Imatra: Thursday–Saturday, 14-17 2007. Health care communication (HCC) has been central to semiotics since the beginning of the latter in the work of Hippocrates. HCC has developed into a thriving academic (sub)discipline in recent years. This panel will focus on the key issue of ‘quality’ in HCC, the ways in which understanding and misunderstanding may take place. The contemporary media are crucial to the process of HCC. Indeed, the internet (and Google, in particular) has recently been found to be the most utilized route to HCC, irrespective of the perceived quality of information to be found on websites. Not only are media responsible for describing illness and health hazards, they are also frequently responsible for creating them. Media sometimes ‘intentionally’ create misperceptions; but, sometimes media audiences are instrumental in misunderstanding. Misunderstanding in HCC, however, is arguably of more importance than misunderstanding in many areas of media transmission of messages. Aberrant decoding of HCCs can sometimes be a matter of life and death rather than simply a source of empowerment through reading strategies. On the other hand, there is increasing recognition of the possibility that citizens develop ‘health literacy’ in the face of risks and the representation of illness. Therefore we would welcome papers which address these issues and, particularly, papers on topics including the following: • representation of risks • the labelling of health conditions • the creation of models of comprehension in health care communication • investigations of different modes of communication (nonverbal as well as verbal) • the development of ‘health literacy’ • semiotic implications of health literacy • the increasing dominance and the criteria of quality in HCC delivered by the internet Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to Peter Schulz [log in to unmask] and Paul Cobley [log in to unmask] Deadline: 31 January 2007 -- Dr. Paul Cobley Reader in Communications London Metropolitan University 31 Jewry Street LONDON EC3N 2EY UK Email: <[log in to unmask]> Tel. ++44 (0)207 320 3086