IAMCR 2023 Call for Proposals

Inhabiting the planet: Challenges for media, communication and beyond

See the calls for proposals of IAMCR's 33 thematic sections and working groups and Flow34 >>

Download this call for proposals as a PDF file

The International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites proposals for IAMCR 2023, to be held in Lyon, France, from 9 to 13 July (Lyon23) with an Online Conference Papers (OCP23) component from 26 June to 5 July.

Conference themes

IAMCR conferences have a main conference theme that is explored from multiple perspectives throughout the conference in plenaries and other moments, including the programmes of the thematic sections and working groups. Additionally, each section and working group also defines some of its own themes, which are described in their individual calls for proposals. Proposals for contributions to the conference are submitted to the sections and working groups and may focus on an aspect of the main conference theme as it relates to the concerns of the section or working group, or address a theme identified by the section or working group.

Main theme – Inhabiting the planet: Challenges for media, communication and beyond

See the complete description of the theme here >>

Our times are marked by the epochal changes that societies have experienced since the end of the grand narratives and the disenchantment of the world. Many intellectual frameworks have been proposed to explain (with more or less critical distance) the rapid and deep transformations and evolutions of recent decades. The concepts of radical modernity, risk society, hypermodernity, and social acceleration, among others, reflect different perspectives on these transformations. They ultimately address the fundamental questions at the core of IAMCR 2023: What does it mean to be human in a digital world? What does it mean to build a common future?

Over the past decade, alternative media, militant communities, opinion leaders, philosophers and scholars have warned of the irreversible effects of climate change which could make the planet uninhabitable. Others have drawn attention to the rise of stark geopolitical, sociocultural and religious tensions. These prophetic and pessimistic views often refer to structural problems related to things such as access to essential natural resources like water, massive deforestation in South America or Southeast Asia, the proliferation of viruses potentially causing hard-to-control pandemics (Ebola, Covid-19), and local but recurrent conflicts, violent oppression and even genocide. Other voices express strong confidence in the collective capacity to build a path to the future based on virtuous technologies.

Whatever the interpretations might be, the digitalization of society and the technological transformation of nature are key problematics that require socio-political debate and governance. These are the issues that stand at the heart of IAMCR 2023, which seeks to provide a forum where the international community of media and communication scholars and researchers can reflect on and debate challenges related to five interconnected topics. Keywords associated with each topic are listed below and a more complete discussion of them is included in the theme description.

Humanity and progress | Keywords: Commons - Paradigm of cooperation - Big social data - Inclusive creativity - Digital health - Progress vs innovation - Technology and society - Ethics of technology and progress - Privacy, online sociability, digital self - Trends, fashion and social networks - Future, Imaginaries, Representations.
Democracy | Keywords: Public action - Citizen action - Digital populism - Digital Activism - Digital citizenship and social movement - Citizen participation/consultation.
Media, information and communication | Keywords: Media and cultural industries, platforms - Data journalism, fact-checking, automated journalism - Regime of truth, post-truth - Audience, public, reception practices – Professional and amateur practices - Advertising, PR, data-marketing - Ethics of algorithms.
Cities and territories | Keywords: Smart and sustainable cities - Urban regeneration and urbanization - Open data - Local territories and communities - Short cycle - Urban re-vegetation - Mobilities.
Environmental accountability | Keywords: Digital and energy sobriety - Social practices and low-tech - Smart/connected objects and everyday life - Public discourses and ecological transition.

Contributing to the conference: OCP23 and Lyon23

There will be two ways of joining IAMCR2023:

If you are not able to or don’t want to join the face-to-face conference in Lyon but do want to submit an online-only paper, submit your abstract to OCP23 only. If accepted, you’ll later submit your full paper to the online platform, which will be open for discussion from 26 June to 5 July.
If you do want to join the face-to-face event, submit your abstract to Lyon23 and OCP23. If accepted you’ll submit your paper to the online platform and present it at the face-to-face conference.

Guidelines for abstracts

Abstracts of contributions must be submitted to one of IAMCR’s thematic sections and working groups or to Flow34. Before submitting, please consult the specific CfP of the section or working group. See the IAMCR website for additional information about the various sections and working groups.

Abstracts should have between 300 and 500 words and must be submitted online here. Abstracts submitted by email will not be accepted. The deadline to submit abstracts is 9 February 2023 at 23h59 UTC.

It is expected that authors will submit only one abstract. However, under no circumstances should an author submit more than two abstracts as a single author or as the lead author of a co-authored paper and no author will submit more than one abstract to a single section or working group. The same abstract or another version with minor variations in title or content must not be submitted to more than one section or working group. Any such submissions will be deemed to be in breach of the conference guidelines and will be rejected.

Technical guidelines, if any, are defined by the individual sections and working groups, or Flow34. If you have questions, consult the section or working group’s specific CfP.

Languages

Each section and working group adopts its own policies regarding languages. Some accept abstracts and programme sessions in English, French and Spanish while others conduct their programmes in only one or two languages. Consult the CfP of your section or working group for details of its language policy.