The Mediated Communication, Public Opinion and Society (MCPOS) Section plans four types of sessions at IAMCR Conference in Mexico City, Mexico, July 21-24, 2009:
- First, we intend to have a series of thematically open sessions devoted to papers which refer in general to the main theme of the conference: "Human Rights and Communication". And the research area of the section: “Mediated Communication, Public Opinion and Society”. We hope to get a variety of interesting papers. We in general are interested in papers that are concerned with all types of communication and human interaction, media, their content, and their use and consumption, including the media of standardized content like TV and newspaper, radio, books and the websites, mediated interpersonal communication e.g. mobile phone or Internet chats and interactive communication as it takes place in computer games or with robots of different type.
- Second, the section is interested to promote the further theoretical discussions in general. In the last years we organized panels about the theoretical contribution to communication studies made by Goffman, Habermas, Schuetz, Bourdieu and Foucault. Following that tradition we would like to organize for the Mexico conference at least one session about McLuhan: Marshall McLuhan was a creative thinker and writer about communication and the media. He developed his own theory about the relation between media and society on the basis of the work of the economist and historian Harold Innis – without making any empirical studies, and of course, with a heavy bias on technology. Although he did not experience the success of personal computer, the Internet and the mobile phone, he is still one of the most quoted academics for the digital media age. He is also well known in the public by a lot of concepts like the Medium is the Massage” “Gutenberg Galaxy” or the “Global Village”. What can we learn from him for our research and theory today? This is the question we hope to get interesting answers by presentations and panels.
- Third, the Section intends to make a session about the role of communication and media in families and households. Families and more general, households are under pressure in a lot of societies by meta-processes like Globalisation, Individualisation and neo-liberal developments. But still, they are the main place of media domestication and media use, and they are the place where children learn to operate with media and start their lifelong media career. The main question we would like to discuss is: how this takes place today in the different cultures, different classes and with reference to the different possibilities to deal with media.
- Forth, we would like to continue what we started successfully in Paris and continued in Stockholm, as a joint effort in cooperation with Claudia Padovani: to become an open space for the discussion and development and critical assessment of the methodologies we use and we need for communication research and especially for international and cross cultural research projects, both quantitative and qualitative.
We will accepts for review abstracts of 500 words in English about the intended presentation, the title of it, the name, address and details of the affiliation of the sender. In addition, we expect a short bio-data of not mare then 100 words. It is also possible to propose a full panel of four participants, which should come from at least three different countries. In this case we expect the four abstracts of the participants and their short bio-data and in addition a framing text about the idea and the goal of the full panel. The Deadline for all abstracts and panel proposals is the 16 February 2009.
Proposals will be reviewed by the two heads of section and by further specialists, named by the heads. All authors will get an answer no later than the 29 March 2009.
You may submit the same abstract or paper to only one section or working group. You may submit different papers to different sections or working groups or, as the case may be, different papers to the same section. If the same paper is submitted to different sections or working groups, IAMCR and the local organizers of the conference will ensure that it is (if accepted) presented in only one session.
If a proposal is accepted, the sender must fulfil two preconditions to be included in the final program of the section. She or he must send a full paper before 1 July 2009 and register her- or himself for participation at the Conference by the same date. This is possible by visiting www.iamcr.org. Of course, also non members of the IAMCR are welcome.
All abstracts (and later all full papers and confirmation of registration) as well as further questions and necessary information should be sent by e-mail to the section heads:
Hillel Nossek
College of Management Academic Studies, Israel
hnossek[AT]colman.ac.il
Friedrich Krotz
University of Erfurt, Germany
friedrich.krotz[AT]uni-erfurt.de