Dear All,
Please see below our call for papers to the upcoming
Information, Communication and Society Symposium (24-26 June 2014, Sardinia, Italy) titled ‘Protest Participation in Variable Communication Ecologies’.
For more information please visit the conference website (http://protestcommunicationecologies.com/), get in touch via social media (@protesteco;
Facebook page: Protest Communication Ecologies).
We look forward to reading your abstracts.
Best wishes,
Dan
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Protest Participation in Variable Communication Ecologies: Meanings, Modalities and Implications
Contemporary
collective action, social movements, civic and political protests are characterized by a growing complexity of actors, contents, repertories, contexts, and effects. Grappling
with the implications of late modernity, scholars worldwide have reflected on the cross-fertilization of individual practices and collective mobilizations. They have foregrounded unconventional forms of engagement, through reflexive, expressive and embodied
acts of dissent cutting across the cultural, political, and social domains, in persistent as well as increasingly transient modes of organisation and belonging. Within this field, some accounts graft social media as an independent variable that would mitigate
the democratic deficits of mass-mediated and institutionalised politics. Others would warn of the power imbalances and the inequalities in participation particularly social media reinforce or heighten.
Keynote speakers
Lance Bennett (University of Washington, USA)
Manuel Castells (Annenberg School of Communication, USC Santa Barbara, USA, TBC)
Natalie Fenton (Goldsmith College, University of London, UK)
Zizi Papacharissi (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
Bev Skeggs (Goldsmith College, University of London, UK)
Seeking to kindle an imagination that situates social media in lived experience and practice, this conference intends to unpick the history and the present of linkages but also of any signs
of a conscious uncoupling of network technologies, broadcasting media and physical places where protest participation is enacted. In doing so, we aim to tackle the significant challenges posed to democratic politics, social theory and research by resultant
variable communication ecologies.
The organizers invite theoretical reflections and empirical analyses tracking continuities and changes in
protest participation arising in
the blurred lines between social media, broadcasting media and physical places. In particular, the conference welcomes contributions that address the following
questions:
We invite
500 word abstracts that outline the envisaged potential to tackle such questions in innovative ways. Abstracts should be accompanied by a
100-word biography of the presenter(s) together with
contact details. Abstracts/biographies/contact details should be sent to
[log in to unmask].
Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis by the scientific committee. The final deadline for submission is
30th January 2015. Without compromising scientific standards, the Conference aims for a wide geographical representation of scientists. Notifications
of acceptance will be sent out at the earliest opportunity and no later than March 2015.
Following the conference, participants will be invited to submit their
papers for consideration by the journal iCS –
Information, Communication & Society which will dedicate a special issue to the conference proceedings. At that time, contributions will also be invited for an
edited collection.
Dr. Dan Mercea
Course Director, MA Media & Communications
Department of Sociology
City University London
St John Street, EC1V 0HB
+44(0)2070404529
http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/academic-staff-profiles/dr-dan-mercea