Law Section - Call for Proposals 2025

The Law Section (LAW) of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites the submission of abstracts for IAMCR 2025, which will be held in Singapore from 13 to 17 July 2025, hosted by the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University.

The deadline for submission is 7 February 2025, at 23h59 UTC.

See the list of all sections and working groups and their remits
See the CfPs of all sections and working groups

IAMCR’s Law Section invites proposals for panels and presentations related to any area of the law in the field of media and communications that are of interest to the Law Section, including but not limited to the main topic of the conference Communicating Environmental Justice: Many Voices, One Planet, which reflects the richness and complexity of the landscape of media and communication studies today. We encourage an inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to research and dialogue, fostering collaborations that address the multifaceted challenges facing our planet, our communities, the diverse life forms that share our world, and the various eco-systems on Earth.

Consult a detailed description of the main theme

We invite all scholars to contribute their unique insights, ensuring that the voices of diverse communities are heard and valued in the ongoing conversation about our planet's future. Together, let’s elevate diverse voices and forge pathways toward a sustainable future.

Among others, topics directly related to the Main conference theme that can be addressed include:

  • The Role of AI in Environmental Communication: The ethics and law of the use of AI to communicate about the environment, including challenges such as disinformation and misinformation and exploring existing regulation, proposals for legislation, legal precedents and others.
  • Promoting Environmental Journalism: Explore the challenges faced by environmental journalists in various contexts and particularly how law and regulation can help address those challenges and how policy, law and regulation can help journalists foster informed discourse on key public issues related to the environment.
  • Diversity in Sustainability Campaigns: Diverse perspectives can help enrich sustainability initiatives and representation in campaigns can help to ensure that all voices are included in the dialogue around environmental justice. How can the law help empower and promote diversity?
  • Community Engagement and Activism: Grassroots movements and community-driven initiatives play a role in advocating for environmental justice, and they can help empower local voices and foster collective action. At the same time, other organizations can exert their power to promote narratives that may not always foster sustainability. How can the law help strike a balance between different stakeholders and ensure that all voices are heard?
  • Cultural Narratives and Environmental Awareness: Cultural narratives shape perceptions of environmental issues and influence behaviour but they can also be co-opted through propaganda and disinformation. What legal tools are available to respond to such challenges?

More generally, IAMCR Law section submissions may address other current topics related to the study of communication law and policy, such as, for example:

  • Communication rights, and the rights to receive, seek and impart truthful information and to disseminate ideas and opinions freely, exploring how the guarantee and exercise of this right fosters commonality in communication, and barriers to these rights intrude with the formation of a common reality through mass media. These proposals may address, from a legal or ethical point of view specific challenges related to multicultural contexts and to a healthy public sphere.
  • Explorations of the history and present of freedom of expression that address specific challenges related to indigenous communications, to the reformulation of colonial structures or challenges to gender equality and the redefinition of gendered stories and particularly as it relates to sustainability and the environment.
  • Challenges to contemporary communication, including the political and moral goals embedded in them and threats and roadblocks to these goals including issues related to information disorders such as disinformation or media manipulation and their effect on healthy public debates, polarization, manipulation, or free and fair elections among other topics. Legal and regulatory to these responses may address all forms of media and recent regulatory developments around the world in media governance, platform regulation or Artificial Intelligence, data privacy or copyright regulation, among others.
  • Exploration, history and legal analysis of regulation, ethical guidelines or other forms of governance that aim to protect journalism or foster the agency of communicators, the strengthening of media companies either as a business, as a social institution devoted to serving the public or as an institution essential for governmental accountability and the rights to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.
  • Regulation of emerging digital technologies in media and communication and the effects on conventional media practices, including the emergence of threats to communication rights in ways that interfere with the weaving of people together, as well as any matters arising in ethics, law and implications for communication rights, data privacy or intellectual property rights.

More broadly, the IAMCR Law Section also invites abstracts and panel proposals that center around questions of media and communication from a legal and ethical perspective, including but not limited to sustainability, fighting climate change, and navigating challenges related to ensuring a just, safe, and healthy space for media and communication in societies. This will necessarily include works dealing with regulatory and policy responses to fighting disinformation and the delicate equilibrium between moderating content that goes against these goals and preserving the rights of freedom of expression and communication. 

Beyond that, topics that currently are of general interest to legal scholars that study media and communication are most welcome, including explorations of, for example the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act in the European Union as well as novel legislation enacted or proposed around the world, including rules and regulations related to content moderation regulatory responses to disinformation; algorithmic regulation and the law; transparency requirements for media companies and internet platforms; the regulation of online political advertising; media and e-commerce regulatory authorities; fighting online harms; data privacy and personal data protection, copyright, artificial intelligence regulation, among others.

Guidelines for abstracts

Abstracts must be submitted exclusively through IAMCR’s submission system from 3 December 2024 through 7 February 2025, at 23.59 UTC.

Abstract should be between 800 and 1000 words. 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.

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
  • Relevance to the section and current trends or controversies in its field
  • Depth of knowledge of the research, theory and/or literature related to the proposed topic as evidenced in the submission
  • Acceptance of proposals may also be conditioned by programme diversity and balance criteria

The Law Section may use additional criteria and may assign different weights to the above criteria.

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. 

Languages

Abstracts in English, French or Spanish are welcome in the IAMCR Law Section. Presentations are also welcome in any of the three languages, but we recommend researchers to prepare their slides in English to facilitate comprehension and discussion.

Deadlines and key dates

The deadline to submit abstracts is 7 February 2025, at 23.59 UTC. For other key dates see https://iamcr.org/singapore2025/keydates. Dates are subject to change.

Contacts

If you have questions, contact the heads of the Law Section. We will be happy to address any queries you may have.

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