AUDIENCE SECTION - CALL FOR PROPOSALS 2022

The Audience Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites the submission of proposals for papers and panels for IAMCR 2022, which will be held online from 11 to 15 July 2022. The conference will also have a national hub at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The deadline for submission is 9 February 2022, at 23.59 UTC.

See the CfPs of all sections and working groups >

Conference Themes

IAMCR conferences have a main conference theme (with several sub-themes) that is explored from multiple perspectives throughout the conference in plenaries, in the programmes of our sections and working groups, and in the Flow34 virtual cinema and podcasts stream. They also have many themes defined by our 33 thematic sections and working groups. Proposals submitted to sections and working groups may be centered on an aspect of the main conference theme as it relates to the central concerns of the section or working group, or they may address the additional themes identified by the section or working group in their individual calls for proposals.

The main theme for IAMCR 2022, “Communication Research in the Era of Neo-Globalisation: Reorientations, Challenges and Changing Contexts,” is concerned with possibilities for rethinking communication research agendas in the post-pandemic world, which has seen dramatic shifts in the way we interact and understand our physical, social, cultural, political and material environments.

Eight sub-themes of this central theme have been identified: Reorienting Media and Communication Research in the Era of Neo-Globalisation; Artificial Intelligence in Global Communication Contexts; Cultural Identities and Dis-Identities in the Era of Neo-Globalisation; Communication for Sustainability: Climate Change, Environment, and Health; Media Ethics and Principles in the Digital Age; Media, Communication, and the Construction of Global Public Health; Data/Digital Science and Intercultural Communication; Digital Platforms and Public Service: Science, Technology and Sustainability. See the complete theme description and rationale here.

The Audience Section invites papers that reflect the conference theme and sub-themes. The Section aims to encourage interest in understanding audiences for a range of media technologies, in diverse settings, reflecting the role of media in identity, everyday life, and broader social, cultural, and political engagement reflecting the interplay between audiences and publics. Considering the constantly changing and dynamic media contexts, questions for inclusiveness, respect, and reciprocity remain pertinent for audiences and their identities linked to media that cross and blur boundaries between cultures. Such blurring experience, however, provides new opportunities for diversity of identity and forms of expression. 

Audiences have gone through significant changes due to the proliferation and reconfiguration of mediatized settings in the past years. We invite our section members to recognize the consequences of these processes for the audiences, their engagements, and responses in the context of dynamic worldwide developments. On the one hand, we have been witnessing a trend of over-dependence on the proliferation of new technologies to stay connected in mediatized environments, on the other hand, we have observed that such over-dependence creates anxieties and deepens existing divides. Similarly, the small-world effect of networked audiences and publics continue to be mediated by the global media industry and the algorithmic order. We particularly invite papers that deepen on these sub-themes of the conference. 

We encourage reflection on the changing nature of audiences, innovations in ways of studying audiences across a range of media and contexts to address the challenge of an increasingly complex convergent media environment that not only address theoretical and methodological underpinnings of audience research, but also more practical issues of audience measurement.

In addition to the call for papers that reflect the general conference theme, we would like to invite papers and proposals for papers and panels that address the following themes, although we are also open to innovative and critical research on audiences from the full range of disciplinary and theoretical positions:

Rethinking Audience Research:  Innovations in theory and method are essential if audience researchers are to keep pace with a rapidly changing media environment where audience(ing) takes multiple forms and resists easy categorization or investigation. We welcome proposals for papers that address new conceptual and practical approaches to studying audiences in the complex convergence of digital and linear media across a range of platforms and that reflect on the emerging agenda for audience studies in a radically transformed media ecology. 

Configuring Audiences: academic audience research no longer ‘owns’ the concept of ‘the audience’, as media industries, governments, regulators, and NGOs are increasingly interested in audience research. We welcome papers that address the varied ways in which audiences are conceptualized, measured, and addressed by media industries, governments, NGOs, and online groups and participants. How is the audience configured in these different contexts, for different reasons and using different methods?

Audiences in Context: There is a growing acknowledgment that the audience is not only to be found in front of the television in the domestic space of the living room. Studies of fans and other dispersed audiences have encouraged an ethnographic turn in audience studies and the decentering of the contexts and practices of being an audience. We welcome submissions that follow audiences into different contexts and engage with the ways that media are dispersed through the practices of everyday life. Complementing this is a rethinking of the spaces of media consumption, including the home, which integrates a range of media technologies in everyday practice.

Audience Experience: There are a variety of ways in which audience experience(s) are being rethought in media and communication. For example, as participants in social media, audiences contribute to the media environment through their online practices and join themselves to a variety of groups and movements. There has been a growing recognition of the importance of belonging and affect in media engagements suggesting new ways of thinking of the visceral aspects of audience engagement that afford new forms of connectivity. These shifts are both welcomed as creating inclusive spaces of engagement and feared because of the strength of feeling associated with populism. The section welcomes presentations that engage these new ways of thinking about audience experiences, such as audience experience mediated by AI recommendations and customization.

Measuring Audiences: A variety of methods are developing to quantify audience practices in a variety of ways. Broadcasters gather data on audience responses through a variety of means that are displacing traditional audience surveys and panels. Social media feeds provide resources for big data analysis of connected audiences and their sentiments. Submissions reflecting on new media audience research tools and applications are welcomed.

Youthful Audiences:  Young people’s relationship with media has been the subject of both the celebration of the potential for new forms of creative expression and anxiety with regard to the impact of powerful media on vulnerable audiences. In relation to new media forms, young people are frequently seen to be in the vanguard of new audience trends and emerging practices of consumption and engagement. We welcome papers that explore audience experience from the adolescent perspective, and that examine opportunities, risks, and challenges faced by children and young people in the current media environment. 

Transnational Audiences: There is a transnational turn in media audiences for global formats and local series, signaling an increasing range of audio-visual content available to consumers, fans, and publics, including translations, subtitling, and fansubbing of fiction and non-fiction television and social media. Doing audience research in digital and transnational media landscapes calls for multi-faceted, pragmatic approaches to varieties of audience experiences grounded in social and cultural contexts. We welcome papers that explore transnational audiences, including the significance of global, regional, and international distribution contexts, geo-cultural approaches to audiences, and the significance of place and time, to researching audiences, users, and publics.

Guidelines for abstracts

Abstracts are requested for the Online Conference Papers component. Abstracts submitted to the Audience Section should have between 300 and 500 words and must be submitted online at https://iamcr2022.exordo.com. Abstracts submitted by email will not be accepted.

The deadline to submit abstracts is 9 February 2022 at 23h59 UTC.

See important dates and deadlines to keep in mind

It is expected that authors 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 first author. No more than one 1 abstract can be submitted by an author to the Audience Section. Please note also that the same abstract or another version with minor variations in title or content must not be submitted to more than one section or working group. Any such submissions will be deemed to be in breach of the conference guidelines and will be rejected.

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. 

Languages

The Audience Section accepts abstracts in English, French, and Spanish.

For further information about the conference contact beijing2022 [at] iamcr.org

For further information about the Audience Section, its themes, submissions, and panels please contact the co-chairs of the section:

Asta Zelenkauskaite
az358 [at] drexel.edu

Miguel Vicente Mariño
miguel.vicente [at] uva.es