The Popular Culture Working Group (POP) of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites the submission of proposals for papers and panels for IAMCR 2024, which will be held in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 30 June to 4 July 2024.
The deadline for submission is 7 February 2024, at 23h59 UTC.
See the CfPs of all sections and working groups
Theme
IAMCR conferences address many diverse topics defined by our 33 thematic sections and working groups. We also propose a single central theme to be explored throughout the conference with the aim of generating and exploring multiple perspectives. This is accomplished through plenary and special sessions, as well as in some of the sessions of the sections and working groups.
The central theme for 2024 focuses on "Whiria te tāngata / Weaving people together: Communicative projects of decolonising, engaging, and listening" - which draws upon a Maori proverb about the strength that comes through common purpose.
Consult a detailed description of the main theme
IAMCR’s Popular Culture Working Group (POP) examines and explores the many relationships between the production, substances and consumption of popular culture from a range of perspectives that are theoretically informed and empirically grounded.
In keeping with this year’s conference theme, POP is concerned with how decolonization, engagement and listening reorient, challenge and change the texts and contexts of pop-cultural production and consumption, and with their implications. POP eagerly invites papers and panel proposals that investigate how popular culture, in all its modes of creation, circulation and contestation fit within an era of decolonization, and the questions about engagement and listening it raises.
Members of POP are especially interested in the academic intersections that the study of popular culture engenders. Hence, POP welcomes contributions from various disciplines, including, but not limited to, media and cultural studies; studies of identity, subjectivity and diversity; audience and consumer studies; industry and production studies; and literary, cinema, theatrical and visual culture studies.
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 idea that our object of analysis, in its many forms, offers 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/ Ōtautahi Christchurch 2024’s theme, POP invites submission of abstracts and panel proposals that explore the following:
- De-colonization narratives and/in popular culture
- Technologies of engagement and listening and/in popular culture
- Structures of and resistance to neo-global popular representations
- Popular narratives of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality and ability
- Global religious imaginaries and popular culture
- Engagement with celebrity, fandom and on/offline community
- De-colonization and popular media industries
- Ethical perspectives in popular culture
- Imaginaries of “truth” in/by popular culture narratives
- Aesthetics and aestheticization in decolonization in popular landscapes
- Nation, the national, 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
- Ecology, climate, sustainability and popular culture
- Social media and social mediation/mediatization in a de-colonizing landscape
Themes within abstracts and panel proposals not mentioned above but still relevant to the study of popular culture will also be considered.
Guidelines for abstracts
Abstracts are requested for papers to be presented in person at the conference in Christchurch. Abstracts submitted to the Popular Culture Working Group should have between 300 and 500 words and must be submitted online here. Abstracts submitted by email will not be accepted.
The deadline to submit abstracts is 7 February 2024, at 23.59 UTC.
It is expected that each person will submit only one (1) abstract. 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. 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 by the abstract submission system, by the Head of the section or working group or by the Conference Programme Reviewer. Authors submitting the same work to multiple sections or working Groups risk being removed entirely from the conference programme.
Proposals are accepted for both single papers and for panels with several papers (in which you propose multiple papers that address a single theme). Please note that there are special procedures for submitting panel proposals.
See important dates and deadlines to keep in mind
Languages
POP accepts abstract submissions in English only.
See resources for IAMCR conference preparation and participation
For further information about the Popular Culture Working Group, its themes, submissions and panels, please contact Tonny Krijnen <krijnen@eshcc.eur.nl>, Florian Vanlee <Florian.Vanlee@ugent.be>, or Yongliang Gao <gaoyongliang@cuc.edu.cn>.
