The Environment, Science and Risk Communication Working Group invites submissions of abstracts for papers and panels for the 2018 International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference to be held 20-24 June in Eugene, Oregon, USA. The deadline for submissions is midnight GMT on 31 January 2018.
The conference will be held under the general theme, ‘Reimagining Sustainability: Communication and Media Research in a Changing World’.The general conference theme is directly relevant to the Environment, Science and Risk Communication Working Group. We encourage the submission of papers that focus on the role of communication and media in both promoting and impeding sustainability. Material communication systems consume energy in their manufacture and use, contribute to problems of pollution and waste, and in their dominant commercial forms, support and encourage a general culture of unsustainable hyperconsumption. What alternatives would advance the full and equal access to diverse information and comprehensive knowledge bases that UNESCO advocates as central to achieving sustainable societies? We encourage participants to address these issues, in relation to both prevailing systems of communication and the systems now emerging around the application of artificial intelligence, the rise of automation and robotics, and the internet of things. We also welcome analysis that reassesses and reimagines sustainability in relation to openness, transparency, accessibility, and the recomposition of power, as we continue to explore the implications of media and communication in an interconnected world.
However, papers from the full range of environment-science-risk-communication topics and perspectives will be welcomed and considered.
Key themes for the Eugene sessions of the Working Group will include:
- Local impacts of digital transformations in science and environment communication
- Democratic debate and citizenship in risk politics
- Environmental and science activism and new media
- Public/political engagement in science and environment communication
- Social and political uses/constructions of science, nature and the environment
- Science/environmental journalism and the political
- In-equalities of discursive control/influence in the public sphere
- Visual environmental communication
- Science and health-related media panics
- Media, advocacy and local/global environmental change
- Scientific controversies/environmental crises, spin and news management
- Media-communication roles in environmental crises and disasters
- Media and public understanding of science/environment issues
- Comparative environmental communication
- Media/social media and counter-factual environmental discourses
- Science, evidence and credibility in the new (post-factual) media environment
Guidelines for Abstracts
Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words and will generally be evaluated on the basis of: 1) theoretical contribution, 2) methods, 3) quality of writing, 4) literature review, 5) relevance of the submission to the work of the working group, and 6) originality and/or significance. Each proposal must include a clear title, name(s), affiliation, institutional address and email address of the author(s).Bibliographies and author profiles are not required.
The Working Group accepts abstracts in English, Spanish and French. If you are planning to present in Spanish or French, you are expected to have an English powerpoint.
Individual papers and panels are possible, but all proposals must be submitted via the IAMCR Open Conference System at http://iamcr-ocs.org. Early submission is strongly encouraged. There are to be no email submissions of abstracts addressed to the Working Group Heads.
It is expected that for the most part, only one (1) abstract will be submitted per person. However, under no circumstances should there be more than two (2) abstracts bearing the name of the same author either individually or as part of any group of authors. Please note also that 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. Such submissions will be deemed to be in breach of the conference guidelines and will be rejected by the OCS system, by the relevant Head or by the Conference Programme Reviewer. Authors submitting them risk being removed entirely from the conference programme.
Deadlines
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 January 2018.
Decisions on acceptance of abstracts will be communicated to applicants by the Working Group Heads no later than 15 March 2018.
Environment, Science and Risk Communication Working Group: http://iamcr.org/s-wg/working-group/environment-sci-and-risk-comm
WG Heads: Pieter Maeseele (Chair), Joana Diaz-Pont, Kerrie Foxwell-Norton,Maitreyee Mishra (Vice-Chairs)