The Islam and Media Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites submissions for the 2016 IAMCR Conference to be held from 27 -31 July, 2016 in Leicester, UK. The deadline to submit your abstract is midnight GMT on 15 February 2016.
Conference theme: "Memory, Commemoration and Communication: Looking Back, Looking Forward"
See the conference key dates and deadlines: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016/keydates
See all Calls for Papers for IAMCR 2016: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016/cfp
Visit the conference website: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016
This year’s conference theme seeks to explore the relationship between memory, commemoration and communication. This theme anticipates the 60th anniversary of IAMCR in 2017, an organization which has played a strong role in the development of media and communication studies.
Although scholars have long been interested in memory and culture, advancements in technologies are providing new and innovative opportunities to think about how it is created, preserved, passed on, and archived.
Within academia, we have witnessed increased interest in cultural memory studies – from media representations of the past, oral history projects and growing interest in digitizing data leading to the history of everything. Various public bodies are also engaged in this work.
2016 theme of IAMCR provides a timely opportunity not only to look back at the Islamic civilization, renaissance, culture and heritage, but also to look forward to how Islamic cultural memories and renaissance, might be archived, remembered, (re)produced, storied, modernized, renewed, and re-told across time, space and cultures. Many civilizations and cultures declined and ultimately died without having experienced renewal. Few survived or lived longer than others, because of their skill, cumulative character and especially their flexibility and adaptation’s capability. Though it is being challenged at present time, Islamic civilization has proven its capability to continue and interact with the worlds’ cultures and civilizations as an autonomous part of the contemporary global culture. It is based on democratic values that are rooted in the original sources of Islam as well as the political culture and institutions of the early Islamic state established by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his successive Caliphs. It is argued that the Islamic universal values is in line with the global ones.
Yet, it seems that the contemporary world system and in its heart the global media system in cooperation with many Arab and Muslim governments work against the prosperity of Islamic civilization and culture. Islamophobia is just an example that shows how the misunderstanding against Islamic civilization remained unchanged from early history right now. The obvious support from western and non-western governments to anti-revolutions of Arab Spring is another example that may also be responsible for generating extreme groups throughout the Muslim world.
Unfortunately, many understand Islamic civilization and culture from the perspective of some terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaida which is completely wrong. Some also use the behaviors of Muslims and especially governments of some Arab and Muslim states as a criterion to judge Islam and Islamic civilization. The behavior that is far from being representing the Islamic values of tolerance, coexistence, democracy, freedom, diversity and respect of different cultures, justice and equality of all human beings. In this respect, a distinction between Islam as a religion which is eternal and unchanging on one side, and Islam as an application of universal guiding values in all spheres of life including politics and economy should be clear.
The central issue of Islam and Media Working Group of IAMCR 2016 conference is how to renew and reconstruct the Islamic civilization and culture through new media and communication technologies in a way that preserves the religion, its values, beliefs, and principles, at the same time helps Islamic culture in the process of interaction with the global culture as an integral part of it.
As Mehdi Mozaffri put it while the Muslims are agreed on the decline of Islamic civilization –as application, culture and not as a religion- they are on the contrary significantly divided on the ways to reconstructing it.
Islam and Media Working Group welcomes papers and panels that deal with this big question through and not limited to the following:
- Islamic global values, communication and democracy
- Islamic global values, new media and public sphere
- Islamic solutions for global economic and banking crises
- Islamic global guiding principles and crises of family ties
- Communication and the history of Islamic civilization
- The Mosque as a major Islamic public sphere
- Challenges facing Islamic culture in the digital age
- New media and revival of Islamic culture
- Islamphobia as a threat to the renaissance of Islamic civilization
- Universal Islamic Values and globalism
- Social networks, digital media and reconstructing Islamic culture
- Tolerance, justice, equality, freedom of expression and rationality as fundamental pillars of Islamic culture and intercultural communication
- Misunderstanding of Islam and its cultural and political consequences
- Islamic worldview models of communication
- Islamic ethics and restoring the credibility of global journalism
- Past, current and future trends of cooperation and coexistence between Islamic culture and global cultures.
Abstracts should be between 300 and 600 words, and should
- have a clear title
- include the name(s) of author(s) and professional title(s) (i.e. professor, postdoctoral fellow, independent researcher, graduate student, student, etc.)
- outline the research objectives/questions/hypotheses
- outline the theoretical framework and methodology if relevant
- make clear the main argument proposed and
- summarize the findings.
Criteria for Evaluation
Submitted abstracts will generally be evaluated on the basis of:
- theoretical contribution
- methods
- quality of writing
- literature review
- relevance of the submission to Islam and Media Working Group
- originality and/or significance of the work
Important dates and deadlines to keep in mind:
- 1 December 2015 Open Computer System (OCS) available for abstract submission
- 15 February 2016 Deadline for submissions
- 1 April 2016 Notification of acceptances of abstracts
- 15 April 2016 Deadline to apply for travel grants and awards
- 28 April 2016 Deadline to confirm your participation
- 20 May 2016 Last day to register at discounted early-bird fee
- 30 June 2016 Deadline for full paper submission
- 7 July 2016 Final conference programme published on the website
- 27-31 July 2016 IAMCR 2016 Conference
Islam and Media Working Group
Chair:
Professor Basyouni Hamada, Department of Mass Communication, Qatar University
basyouni_hamada(at)yahoo.com
Vice-Chairs:
Dr. Mahmoud M. Galander Department of Mass Communication, Qatar University
galander(at)qu.edu.qa
Bushra Hameedur Rahman, University of the Punjab, Pakistan
bushraihr(at)yahoo.com
See the conference key dates and deadlines: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016/keydates
See all Calls for Papers for IAMCR 2016: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016/cfp
Visit the conference website: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016