Call for proposals 2026
The Popular Culture (POP) Section invites the submission of abstracts for its 2026 conference, to be held from 28 June to 2 July 2026 in Galway, Ireland, hosted by the University of Galway.
The deadline for submission is 3 February 2026 at 23:59 UTC.
Download this call for papers as a PDF file
Central theme
IAMCR conferences cover a wide range of topics defined by our thematic Sections and Working Groups (S/WG). Each year, a central theme invites participants to engage in shared reflection across these diverse areas, fostering dialogue and collaboration.
The 2026 central theme, Peripheries and Connections: Media, Communication, and Transformation, addresses the complexities of contemporary media systems in a polarised and interconnected world. By interrogating the tensions between centrality and marginality—whether geographical, cultural, political, or conceptual—this theme aligns with IAMCR’s commitment to fostering critical and inclusive dialogues across diverse perspectives.
Consult a detailed description of the main theme
This year’s conference theme closely matches POP’s mission to analyse popular culture as a ‘pivotal arena of struggle for the distribution and deployment of resources for self-understanding and social agency’. Amid questions of polarisation, transnationality and interconnectedness, popular culture is transformed into a space in which resistance and reification of the status quo go hand in hand. POP is concerned with how texts and contexts of pop-cultural production and consumption challenge, resist and reaffirm dominant global media narratives and advance alternative frameworks for power, identity, and community.
Members of the Popular Culture Section are interested in the (academic) intersections that the study of popular culture evokes. Embracing insights from critical disciplines such as cultural studies, media studies, gender and queer studies, literary studies, and theatre studies, the Section engages with multifarious perspectives and embraces the richness of popular culture as a field of study. Consequently, it prioritises critical and interpretative approaches to popular culture that are less concerned with linear effects or causal models, and more with modes of analysis attuned to contextuality, complexity and contradiction.
POP eagerly invites papers and panel proposals that investigate how popular culture, in all its modes of creation, circulation and contestation contributes to furthering an understanding of the complexities of contemporary media systems in a polarised and interconnected world.
Topics addressing the central theme
POP is committed to examining the ever-changing nature of the social, political and economic forces that configure communication processes and, specifically, the communicative role of popular culture. We premise the study of popular culture on the observation that our object of analysis, in its many forms, has and continues to offer sites to understand how the relation between structural and subjective agents comes into being, and how institutions and individuals interface with each other. In keeping with IAMCR 2026’s theme, POP invites submission of abstracts and panel proposals that theoretically, methodologically, and/or empirically explore the following:
- Marginalised voices in/on popular culture narratives
- Technologies of engagement and listening and/in popular culture
- Structures of and resistance to neo-global popular representations
- Popular narratives of social difference (e.g. gender; race; ethnicity; class; sexuality; ability)
- Digital technologies: friend or foe in popular culture
- Engagement with celebrity, fandom and on/offline community
- De-colonization and popular media industries
- Ethical perspectives (and sustainability) in popular culture
- Imaginaries of “truth” in/by popular culture narratives
- Aesthetics, aestheticization and resistance in popular culture landscapes
- Nation, the national, (trans)nationalism and populism in popular culture
- Neo-global consumer structures/contexts and consumer subjectivities/identities
- Social justice, human rights, equality and inclusion in popular narratives
- Social media and social mediation/mediatization in a de-colonizing landscape
Naturally, abstracts and panel proposals that address themes not mentioned above but relevant to the study of popular culture will also be considered.
Guidelines for abstracts
Abstracts for papers to be presented in person at one of the Popular Culture (POP) Section’s conference sessions, should be between 400 and 600 words in length and contain references to the most important theoretical notions used to develop the study. They must be submitted exclusively through IAMCR’s submission system from 28 November 2025 through 3 February 2026 at 23:59 UTC. Abstracts submitted by email will not be considered.
It is expected that each person will submit only one abstract. However, no author’s name should appear on more than two abstracts, either individually or as part of any group of authors and authors should not submit more than one abstract to any single section or working group. The same abstract, or a version with minor variations in title or content, must not be submitted to more than one Section or Working Group. Such submissions will be deemed to be in breach of the conference guidelines and will be rejected. Authors submitting the same work to multiple Sections or Working Groups may be removed entirely from the conference programme.
Proposals are accepted for both single papers and multi-paper sessions.
Evaluation criteria
Submitted abstracts will generally be evaluated on the basis of:
- Technical merit
- Readability
- Originality and/or significance
- Use of or contribution to theory
- Depth of knowledge of the research, theory and/or literature related to the proposed topic as evidenced in the submission
- Relevance to the section and current trends or controversies in its field
Acceptance of proposals may also be conditioned by programme diversity and balance criteria.
Languages
POP accepts abstract submissions in English only.
Statement on use of AI tools
IAMCR does not encourage or condone the use of generative AI tools to prepare abstracts submitted for consideration for our conferences. IAMCR values originality, integrity, and transparency in academic work, and believes that human-authored contributions best support rigorous and innovative scholarship in media and communication research. Should an author choose to use a generative AI tool in the preparation of an abstract, we require that they include a clear statement within their submission disclosing the tool's use. This statement must specify: (1) the name of any AI tool used; (2) how the tool was used in preparing the abstract, and; (3) the reason for using the tool. Failure to disclose the use of generative AI in accordance with these guidelines may impact the evaluation and acceptance of the submission.
Intention to attend
Each abstract submitted to IAMCR represents a real cost to the Association and contributes to the workload of volunteer reviewers and organisers. As the number of submissions each year far exceeds the available presentation slots, we ask authors to submit only if they genuinely intend to attend and present their work at the conference if accepted.
Deadlines and key dates
The deadline to submit proposals is 3 February 2026, at 23:59 UTC. Other key dates. Dates are subject to change.
About the Popular Culture Section
Learn more about the work and scope of the Popular Culture Section
Contact the Section
Chair: Tonny Krijnen, krijnen@eshcc.eur.nl
Vice-chair: Florian Vanlee, Florian.Vanlee@ugent.be
Vice-chair: Yongliang Gao, gaoyongliang@cuc.edu.cn
