IAMCR 2012 - Media Religion and Culture Working Group Call for Papers

The Media, Religion and Culture (MRC) Working Group invites proposals for papers to be presented at the annual conference for the International Association for Media & Communication Research at the Howard College Campus of the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN), in Durban, South Africa; from 15th-19th of July 2012. The website address of the Durban conference is: http:www.iamcr2012.ukzn.ac.za/

The working group on Media, Religion & Culture is scheduled to meet Monday-Wednesday, 16th-18th of July, with a business meeting on Tuesday.

The IAMCR conference will be held under the general theme, `South-North Conversations’. The term ‘Global South’ refers to communities that have been excluded from the mainstream of economic, social and communication development. The theme reflects asymmetry of global communication flows, but without implying the negatives that usually accompany discussions of the digital divide, and regard those in `the South’ as victims primarily in need of handouts from the more affluent. Rather, emphasis on what the North might take from the South in a reciprocal relation is invited.

There is hardly an established canon of research in this wide field of media, religion and culture, although some nuclei in the current research agenda can be identified. While the MRC working group will certainly welcome papers which address the media-religion aspects of the conference theme `South-North Conversations’, papers across the broad spectrum of research on the relationship of media, religion and culture are equally encouraged. These include images of religion in mass media; news coverage of religion; religious communities and the media; impact of media on religious practices whether personal or institutional; theological approaches to the mass media; new media and religion; the emergences of the religious according to new mediatic conditions; film and religion; religious media; religious public relations; the specificity of communication practices in religions given their singular content and claims; religious communication processes; media expression of faith and spirituality etc. Generally, there is an effort to support and clarify more descriptive scholarship with a number of the developing explanatory and theoretical accounts.

All approaches are welcome for proposed papers, provided they offer good quality and interesting, novel perspectives in their respective methodological nature.

Send your 300 to 500 words abstract by February 14th 2012. In accord with the instructions of the IAMCR organisers, all abstracts should be identified  for the specific working group (in this case, Media, Religion & Culture) and must be submitted via the central Open Conference System (OCS). Submissions should not be sent directly to us at the working group.

The OCS system will open on December 1st 2011, and will close on February 14, 2012.

No more than three abstracts may be submitted by any applicant.

It is intended that decisions on acceptance of abstracts will be communicated to individual applicants by the Media, Religion and Culture working group no later than March 12th 2012. On the same day (March 12th) conference registration will open for bookings by participants.

The full text of accepted papers must be submitted no later than June 10th 2012.

Please, share this notice with other academic researchers on media and religion.

We look forward to seeing old and new participants in the working group in Durban.