The Rural Communication (RUC) Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites the submission of abstracts for its 2025 conference, 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
The Rural Communication Working Group aims to provide a platform for academic scholars and professionals working in the field of rural communication. The focus of our work is more than just rural communication service provision but exploring the breadth of formal and informal communication platforms to formal and informal communication processes. This encompasses technologies ranging from rural radio to ICTs, from farmer field schools to rural telecommunication infrastructure. The key is that we focus on communication in rural areas, and the intersection between communication and rurality. The motivation for this work comes from the recognition that rural contexts post particular opportunities and challenges for communication activities. If communication is to serve a social purpose, these dynamics need to be understood. Therefore, we focus on rural innovations and interventions, social change and development that responds in a sustained and inclusive manner to communication needs of rural populations.
Theme
IAMCR conferences address many diverse topics defined by our 37 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 many of the sessions of the sections and working groups. The 2025 central theme is Communicating Environmental Justice: Many Voices, One Planet.
Consult a detailed description of the main theme
For this conference, with the theme of “Communicating Environmental Justice: Many Voices, One Planet”, we are interested in papers, panel proposals and facilitated discussion sessions that bring a critical lens to rural communication from various disciplinary and thematic contexts. We expect that for this conference theme, there will be at least one panel session about inclusive environmental communication concerning rural areas. We would especially like to have a thematic session about rural voices and amplifying marginalised rural perspectives, as well as the application of rural communication services and participatory communication approaches and strategies as applied to many different environmental issues in rural areas. We are open to creative and interactive presentations/facilitated sessions, including examples of communication from practitioners.
Further topics of interest to the working group include innovative methodologies and new technologies for rural communication, extension and environmental issues (including access to natural resources, climate adaptation/mitigation, landscape management, and community-based natural resources, among others); interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder actions and social learning; innovation system approaches and knowledge brokering; monitoring and evaluation for learning and institutional change; research and transdisciplinarity in rural communication for development theory and practice, and; mainstreaming communication in rural development policies.
Rural Communication Services Research Award
In cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), IAMCR is offering three awards of 2,500 USD to authors of papers that advance our understanding of applications of Rural Communication Services (RCS), particularly in the areas of agriculture, family farming, natural resource management, climate change adaptation, food security, and disaster risk reduction and management.
Eligibility: To be eligible for the award, you must be a current (2025) member of IAMCR.
Submitted research must demonstrate how it will contribute to our understanding of rural communication, RCS, and the application of these in Africa, Asia, or Latin America.
The 2,500 USD is to be used to defray the costs of presenting the work at a special panel at IAMCR’s 2025 conference. The selected papers will be published in a FAO/IAMCR publication.
Interested authors must submit abstracts of their papers by the 7 February 2025 deadline, indicating that they wish to be considered for the FAO/IAMCR Award in step 5 of the submission process, “Topics”. Authors of selected abstracts will be informed by 21 February 2025 and required to submit final papers by 21 April 2025. The FAO/IAMCR Award selection committee will evaluate the eligible papers and announce the winners no later than 7 May 2025.
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. 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. Authors submitting the same work to multiple Sections or Working Groups may be removed entirely from the conference programme.
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
Statement on use of AI tools
IAMCR does not encourage or condone the use of generative AI tools to create 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
The Rural Communication Working Group accepts abstract submissions in all three official languages of the association - English, French and Spanish. 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
For further information about the Rural Communication Working Group, its themes, submissions and panels contact the Co-chairs Sarah Cardey [s.p.cardey@reading.ac.uk] or Rico Lie [rico.lie@wur.nl] or the Vice-chair Maria Stella C. Tirol [mctirol@up.edu.ph].
