Representations of (Post-)Industrial Communities: Voice, Visibility and Value

An IAMCR pre-conference

This pre-conference hosted by IAMCR’s Communication in Post- and Neo-Authoritarian Societies Working Group (CPN), examines public and communicative processes around (de-)industrialisation in Europe and North America, focusing on questions of voice, visibility, representation, and inequality. It takes a pluralist approach, combining analyses of public discourse with research grounded in lived experience.

Call for proposals

Authors are invited to submit abstracts of 250-300 words (excluding references, figures, and tables) by 15 March 2026 (23:59 CEST / 21:59 UTC).

Download the full call for papers

Abstracts must include name, affiliation, and contact information. Submissions should be written in English and include the main research question(s), research interest, theoretical framework, methodological approach, and key empirical findings (if applicable).

A selection of papers presented at the pre-conference will be invited to contribute to a special issue of the open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed Global Media Journal (German edition).

Date and time

Saturday, 27 June 2026

10:00–17:00 (to be confirmed)

Location

Dublin (venue to be confirmed)

About the pre-conference

Industrialization in Europe and North America was associated with profound societal transformations, most notably the urbanisation of populations and the creation of mass workforces. Across generations, many families expected their children to follow established occupational trajectories into mines, steelworks, docks, mills, and factories. For much of the twentieth century, heavy industries offered relatively stable employment and social security, contributing to gradual improvements in working-class conditions up to the 1960s.

Deindustrialization, by contrast, has often been experienced as a process of decline and loss – in economic as well as social terms. Beyond the erosion of material living standards, it has entailed the loss of pride, security, and self-worth among urban working-class communities. As industries disappeared, so too did the social infrastructures that sustained everyday life. Urban spaces fell into decay, amenities declined, and the voices, values and identities of communities were increasingly marginalised within broader national imaginaries. For many affected communities, this history continues to shape present experiences of being voiceless, unrepresented, and neglected.

The proposed pre-conference seeks to explore these dynamics by examining the public and communicative processes around (de-)industrialization. It aims to take a pluralist approach to industrial transformation, attending both to macro-level public discourses and to the lived experiences of communities navigating industrial decline and post-industrial restructuring. By foregrounding communication as a central site through which industrial transformation is interpreted, contested, and experienced, the pre-conference invites critical engagement with questions of inclusion/exclusion, voice, (in)visibility, (mis/under-)representation and inequality in societies shaped by ongoing processes of deindustrialization.

Convenors