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74TH ANNUAL ICA CONFERENCE THEME

CALL FOR PAPERS

The purpose of this year's theme, Communication and global human rights is threefold: to take stock of the contributions of communication scholarship to the study of human rights; to foreground current research and practice; and to outline promising directions for communication studies.

Human rights is a global priority. It is a political and moral language, grounded on the notion that all human beings share universal attributes and deserve recognition and support. It is a normative horizon for making our world more humane and just. It is central to the cosmopolitan imaginary that posits the existence of a moral and political order above nation-states. It is woven into fundamental questions of our times, such as overlapping crises (e.g., climate/environment, health, migration, food insecurity), entrenched global inequalities, armed conflicts, threats to public safety, and social exclusion and hate.

Communication is central to contemporary global human rights in many ways. It is manifest in public debates spurred by the mobilization of "rights" movements as well as political/cultural backlash; efforts to raise public awareness about the significance of rights, especially given continuous violations of human rights and the tragic failure of inter-government institutions, states, and other actors to enforce rights; the evidentiary claims of human rights reporting, based on both standardized and contested communication practices; the use and critique of human rights as a discourse; conflicts over the balance between speech rights with other rights such as privacy and safety; debates over whether human rights is a universalist project embedded in Western principles and globalist projects, or an inspiring political, moral and legal framework sensitive to difference, inclusivity, localization, and reappropriation.

As a research topic, human rights cuts across the vast landscape of communication studies. Several areas of specialization explore theoretical and empirical questions situated at the intersection of communication and human rights: linguistic, historical, legal, epistemological, and political dimensions; rights movements and counter-movements; narrative about rights violation and repair; large-scale persuasion and information campaigns; institutionalization and enforcement of rights in communication and media policies. Altogether, these lines of inquiry lay out wide-ranging research agendas, as well as theoretical and empirical questions and arguments, with significant implications for scholarship, education, and public engagement.

With these ideas in mind, we invite submissions for papers and panel proposals. Here is an illustrative sample of themes:

•      Speech/communication rights of individuals and groups in organizations;

•      Advocacy for the rights of citizens, especially marginalized groups;

•      Media coverage of human rights;

•      Human rights as a core principle of communication, media and information policies;

•      The communicative practices of governments, corporations and the non-profit sector regarding the rights of citizens, employees, clients, and other publics;

•      Human rights in collective memory and social identities;

•      Personal and collective digital storytelling and visual communication related to human rights causes and campaigns;

•      The political distortion and hijacking of human rights concepts and narratives.

•      The communicative strategies and impact of critics and detractors of human rights

•      The vulnerability of human rights amid consolidation of digital surveillance

•      The uses of digital technologies in the documentation of human rights conditions

I have invited colleagues who are experts on these issues to serve as co-chairs: Kari Anden-Papadopoulos; Tanja Bosch; John Erni, Gerard Goggin, Ella McPherson, Kerri Moore, and Pradip Thomas.

Co-chairs will review paper submissions and panel proposals and provide advice during the planning of sessions.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All submissions should focus on the topic of Communication and Global Human Rights

Papers on the conference theme can be submitted to be part of panels to the conference chair.

Panel proposals should be cross-divisional, with participation across ICA divisions and interest groups. Panel proposals must include a 500-word rationale explaining how the panel fits the conference theme plus a separate 150-word summary of the rationale to appear in the conference program. All panel submissions should include contributions from at least two different countries; not more than one contributor from a single faculty, department or school; and consider diversity among panelists.

Submissions deemed to fit only the interests of one division or interest group rather than the conference as a whole will be forwarded to that group for consideration. Papers or panels submitted to the theme must not be submitted simultaneously for consideration to any division or interest group.

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.icahdq.org/resource/resmgr/conference/2024/2024-cfp.pdf

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Tom Mankowski
ICA
Washington DC
United States
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