A world of narratives: Structuring, re-membering and re-claiming the world through communication – An IAMCR pre-conference

Update: This was initially planned as a hybrid pre-conference. On 16 May Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) in Suzhou, host of the pre-conference, announced that due to a recent outbreak of COVID 19 in the city the conference will be online only.

Dates

9 and 10 July 2022

NEW:  Download the preconference programme

Description

Narratives reflect our world – more so than even metaphors or myths, they help us to create and remember meanings and thus influence our understanding of ourselves and of the world in which we live.

While oral or even paper-based narratives retain some fluidity and are subject to processes of ‘re-membering’, the advent and rise of the Internet provided narratives with dissociation from an individual narrator and the permanence of existence in the cloud as well as a much wider audience, thus getting closer to the notion of ‘writerly texts’.

The growth of Social Media and the proliferation of digital communication devices, platforms, and apps have led to the ubiquity of narratives and narrative devices. Far from leading to a globalized public sphere, though, this has contributed to a splintering of decontextualized narrative sources from which to construct individual narratives from a bricolage of fragments joined through rhizomatic connections that re-establish cognitive demarcations between individuals, groups, nations, etc. 

The past decade has seen an increased emphasis on national Internets, national TV production, national comics, film, music industries – in short, national narratives while at the same time celebrating the breadth of choices available to individuals and the emergence of global audiences for local narratives.

This pre-conference wants to re-engage with the myriad competing and conflicting narratives available, being chosen or rejected, being re-appropriated, shared, collected or turned into meta-narratives.

We invite papers that:

• Celebrate narratives at all levels and in all forms of communication;
• Discuss clashing narratives;
• Investigate new forms of individual, local, group, regional, national, trans-national, global, post-global, post-colonial, universal, inclusive, … narratives;
• Develop or (re-)invent approaches to narratives in Communication Studies;
• Propose new theories for the understanding of narrative practices or artefacts;
• Engage in social, cultural, political, … critiques of narratives and their use.

Location

An online pre-conference hosted by Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU). 

Early career and PhD candidate scholarship

To encourage research in this area among young scholars, the organizing committee is pleased to announce up to 10 scholarships, which will cover the conference fee and two nights’ accommodation.

Submission guidelines 

All submissions should be written in English. Abstracts should be around 300 words and include the title of the paper and the authors’ names, affiliations, and email addresses. Panel proposals are limited to 1,000 words, excluding the title page and references. 

For those who hope their papers to be assessed for the scholarship, you should indicate your intention when you submit your extended abstract of around 800 words.

Language

The pre-conference will be conducted in English.

Possible outputs

• A special issue with an international peer-reviewed leading academic journal
• An edited volume with an international key humanities and social science publisher

Further information and how to submit

For full details download the pre-conference call for papers

Key dates

15 March 2022: Submission deadline

15 April 2022: Authors notified of organising committee’s decision.

Participation and registration

Participation is open to all.
For registration, please write to IAMCR.PRECONF [at] xjtlu.edu.cn to get the link to attend the pre-conference.

Preconference programme

NEW: Download the preconference programme

Organisers

The Department of Media and Communication in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University in Suzhou will organise and host this IAMCR pre-conference

Contact email

IAMCR_PRECONF [at] xjtlu.edu.cn

For pre-conference registration, write to IAMCR_PRECONF [at] xjtlu.edu.cn.