RN18 - Sociology of Communications and Media Research
The new board of RN18 has been elected. It consists of Christian Fuchs (Chair), George Pleios (Vice Chair), Peter Golding (Honourary Founding Chair), Jan Mueller (Communication Officer), John Downey, Mine Mine Gencel Bek, and Romina Surugiu.Chair:
Prof. Christian Fuchs
University of Westminster Communication and Media Research Institute
School of Media, Arts and Design,
Watford Road, Northwick Park,
Middlesex HA1 3TP,
UK.
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http://fuchs.uti.at
Tel +44 (0) 20 7911 5000-7380
Vice Chair:
Dr. George Pleios
Associate Professor and Head of Department University of Athens
Faculty of Communication and Media Studies
5 Stadiou Str.
Athens 105 62
Greece
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Tel: +302103689444
http://sites.google.com/site/georgepleioswebsite
Honourary Founding Chair
Prof. Peter Golding
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation) Northumbria University
Ellison Building Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST UK
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Tel: +44(0)191-243-7200
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sass/about/media/staff/profpgolding/
Jan Mueller (Communications Officer), Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
John Downey, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mine Gencel Bek – Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Romina Surugiu, University of Bucharest, Romania, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Click here to read the biennial report 2009-2011 of RN18
European Sociological Association 11th Conference
TORINO, 28-31 August 2013
Call for Papers
Instructions
Authors are invited to submit their abstract either to the general session (open) or any specific session. Please submit each abstract only to one session. After abstract evaluation, coordinators will have the chance to transfer papers between sessions where applicable.
Abstracts should not exceed 1750 characters (including spaces, approximately 250 words). Each paper session will have the duration of 1.5 hours. Normally sessions will include 4 papers.
Abstracts can only be submitted online no later than 1st of February 2013 to the submission platform at: www.esa11thconference.eu. Abstracts sent by email cannot be accepted.
The information requested during abstract submission include: 1) name(s), affiliation(s) and email of all the author(s); 2) contact details of presenting author (postal address, and telephone in addition to email); 3) title of proposed presentation; 4) up to 4 keywords (optional).
Submitting authors will receive an email of acknowledgement of successful submission receipt. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and selected for presentation by the relevant Research Network or Research Stream; the letter of notification will be sent by the conference software system in early April 2013. Each author cannot submit more than two abstracts (as first author).
Abstract submission deadline: 1st February 2013
Abstract submission platform: http://www.esa11thconference.eu
If you have further questions on the conference, please visit the conference website.
For information on the Research Networks, visit: http://www.europeansociology.org/
RN18 - Sociology of Communications and Media Research
Coordinator: Christian Fuchs < This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change
ESA RN18 focuses in its conference stream on the discussion of how crisis, critique and societal changes shape the study of media, communication & society today. The overall questions we want to address are:
Which crises (including the financial and economic crisis of capitalism, global wars and conflicts, ecological crisis, the crisis of democracy, legitimation crisis, etc) are we experiencing today and how do they influence media and communication in contemporary society?
What are the major changes of society, the media, and communication that we are experiencing today?
What forms of political critique (political movements) and academic critique (critical studies, critical media sociology, critical theory, etc) are emerging today and are needed for interpreting and changing media, communication and society?
ESA RN18 is calling for both general submissions on “Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change” that address these questions as well as more specific submissions that address a number of specific session topics.
01RN18. Capitalism, Communication, Crisis & Critique Today
This session focuses on how to critically study the connection of capitalism and communication in times of crisis. Questions to be addressed include for example:
• How has the crisis affected various media and cultural industries?
• What is the role of media and communication technologies in the financialization, acceleration, and globalization of the capitalist economy?
• What are the ideological implications of the crisis for the media? What is the role of critical and alternative views of the crisis in the media and what are the conditions of conducting critical reporting of the crisis?
02RN18. Communication, Crisis and Change in Europe
This session focuses on media and communication in Europe in times of crisis and change. We are especially interested in presentations that cover Europe as a whole and go beyond single-country studies.
• How has the crisis affected the various media and communication industries (advertising, broadcasting, Internet, press, film, music, etc) in Europe as a whole and what are the differences between various parts of Europe?
• What have been policy ideas of how to overcome the crisis and deal with contemporary changes in relation to European media and communication industries?
• How have the crisis and its appearances (protests, riots, civil unrest, unemployment, rising inequality, bankruptcy, discussions about European banks, the austerity measures against Greece, Spain, etc) been reflected in the European media’s reporting? What has the role been of ideologies and alternative reporting in this context?
03RN18. Knowledge Labour in the Media and Communication Industries in Times of Crisis
• What are the conditions of working in the media and communication industries in the contemporary crisis times?
• What changes has knowledge and creative labour been undergoing?
• What is the role of class and precariousness in knowledge labour?
How do new forms of exploitation and unremunerated labour (“free labour”) look like in the media sector (e.g. in the context of Internet platforms like Facebook or Google)?
• What is the connection of value creation and knowledge labour?
• What has been the changing role of the state in relation to “creative labour”?
04RN18. Critical Social Theory and the Media: Studying Media, Communication and Society Critically
• What does critique mean in the contemporary times of crisis?
• What is critical sociology and what is its role for studying media and communication’s role in society?
• Which social theories do we need today for adequately understanding media & society in a critical way?
• How shall we best theorize the media and society for understanding their connection?
• What are the major changes of society and the media today and how can they be theoretically understood?
05RN18. Sociology of Communications and Media Research (open)
ESA RN18 welcomes papers that address the study of the relationship of media and society in times of crisis, change, and the renewal of critique. Questions that can for example be addressed include, but are not limited to the following ones:
• What connections are there between the financial/economic crisis and other crises and media and communication?
• What are the links of crisis, communication, and political critique (e.g. media use in the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, the protests in Greece and Spain, contemporary student protests)?
• What does and should it mean to be a critical media sociologist today? What are topics of the critical study of media and communication? Which social theories and theorists do we need today to critically understand media and communication and their connection to the sociology of power structures? What methods do we need for critically studying media and communication? How does critical media sociology relate to politics and political movements?
• How have the media conveyed the social and economic crises of recent years to citizens and what are the consequences of this flow of ideas and explanations?
• Are the media part of the problem or part of the solution of the crisis?
06JS18. RN18 Joint session with RN06 Critical Political Economy
Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Change
(Chairs: Ian Bruff & Christian Fuchs)
This joint panel with RN18 invites submissions on the theme of ‘Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Change’. Abstract submissions could, for example, focus on the role of media and communication in critical political economy approaches to the crisis, the role of critical political economy approaches in the sociology of communications and the media, or indeed any other aspects of topics and issues linked to this theme. In other words, this joint session focuses on the intersection of Critical Political Economy and the Sociology of the Media and Communication. It is interested in contributions that focus on one or more of the following questions:
Which approaches that are based on Marx, Critical Political Economy, or Marxism are there today for understanding the current crisis and ongoing changes?
What is the role of the media and communication in these approaches?
What is the role of Critical Political Economy, Marx, and Marxism in the Sociology of the Media and Communication?
What is the role and value of Marx today for understanding crisis, change, capitalism, communication, and critique?
18JS29. RN18 Joint session with RN29 Social Theory
Social Theory and Media Sociology Today
(Chair: George Pleios and Csaba Szalo)
This joint session of RN18 and RN29 focuses on the intersection of Social Theory and Sociology of the Media and Communication. It is interested in contributions that focus on one or more of the following questions:
What are the best social theories that sociology provides for understanding contemporary society that is undergoing transitions and crises? What is the role of the media and communication in such contemporary social theories? Which of these theories do we need for understanding society and the media in the current times of crisis and change?
How can one best theorize various societal phenomena (such as: the relationship of structures and agency, power, domination, class, inequality, stratification, violence, struggles, capitalism, the state, crisis, critique, societal change, revolution, social movements, modernity, space, time, the public sphere, democracy, globalization, ideology, hegemony, the self, identity, culture, racism, gender, the relationship of the private and the public, etc) and then use these theoretical concepts for theorizing and understanding the role of the media in contemporary society that is experiencing crisis and manifold changes?
