Call for Papers: “Building Grounded Practical Theory in Applied Communication Research”

Journal of Applied Communication Research Special Issue

Co-editors: Robert T. Craig and Karen Tracy, University of Colorado Boulder
Submission deadline: June 15, 2013
Anticipated publication: May, 2014

Grounded practical theory (GPT) is a conceptual and methodological approach that aims to develop normative communication theories useful for reflecting on real-world dilemmas and practical possibilities of communication.

Following the initial formulation of GPT by Craig and Tracy in 1995, the approach has been applied to a variety of communicative practices ranging from academic colloquia to crisis negotiations, public meetings, and new forms of organizing. Many of these applications have not only used GPT but have also extended the approach to engage conceptual issues and to employ methods not anticipated in its initial formulation. For this special issue we seek studies that continue this process of challenging, refining, and extending the GPT framework through innovative applications of the approach to address important communication problems in any field of applied communication research.

Manuscripts, limited to 8,000 words, should be prepared for blind review. Please see the Journal of Applied Communication Research for author instructions and guidance on making submissions. Mention in the cover letter that the submission is for consideration in the special issue.

Please contact either special issue co-editor regarding and questions or preliminary ideas: (Robert.Craig@Colorado.edu, Karen.Tracy@Colorado.edu).

Call for Papers: 3rd Annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics

The Center for Digital Ethics & Policy at Loyola U Chicago (digitalethics.org) will be holding its 3rd annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics on 4 October 2013. The keynote speaker will be Douglas Rushkoff.

We are looking for papers on digital ethics. Topics might include privacy, anonymity, griefing, free speech, intellectual property, hacking, scamming, surveillance, information mining, transparency, digital citizenship, or anything else relating to ethical questions and digital technology, or ethical use of digital technologies in journalism, advertising and public relations.

This year we are ask that full papers be submitted for review. These papers should represent original research that has not been presented or published elsewhere.

Authors of accepted papers will be eligible for up to $400 in travel funds to be able to attend the Chicago symposium. The author(s) of the top student paper will be eligible for up to $1,000 in travel funds.

Papers are due by midnight CST on 15 April 2013, should follow APA or MLA style and be no longer than 30 pages, not including references.

Authors of top papers will have the opportunity to have their work published in Proceedings from the 3rd Annual Symposium on Digital Ethics.

Send your submission in a MS Word document attachment to contact@digitalethics.org, and please write Digital Ethics Symposium submission in the subject line.

You can send questions to the same email address.

Call for Papers: Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC)

22nd International Annual Conference
4-7 July 2013
in partnership with the U Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Theme: Transformational Communication and the New Asia

The theme of this year’s annual AMIC conference seeks to highlight the role of communication and the media in bringing about a ‘New Asia’, that is, an Asia that is slowly transforming into a ‘soft power’ as Europe and North America seem to continue their decline.

A recent study by the Asian Development Bank noted that, “Asia is in the midst of a truly historic transformation. It holds the promise of making some 3 billion additional Asians, hitherto commonly associated with poverty and deprivation, affluent by today’s standards.”

With this economic growth comes ‘soft power’, seen in the growing global influence of Asian culture, symbolized by, for example, the rising Bollywood and Hong Kong genre in films, Japanese anime and Korean pop music. It is also seen in the Asian presence in various communication channels. Most Asian nations have their own radio and television networks and have reduced their reliance on Western-oriented international news agencies for their world news content. And their social and mobile media presence is overwhelming. To illustrate, the Internet Worldstats.com reports that Chinese is the second most used language on the Internet (after English). Japanese rated fourth, and Korean was tenth.

Conference streams:

• new media, old media ethics
• media and revolution
• new media literacies
• ethnicity, race and religion in communication
• communication and youth
• leadership and the media
• new paradigms in development communication
• cross-cultural networking
• policy and communication
• gender and communication
• media and a free press
• broadcasting, past and present
• print communication, past and present
• media history and evolution
• freedom of expression in transition societies
• socio-political development and the media
• media empowerment
• communication and social change

Papers will be selected on a competitive basis and an expert panel will be appointed for screening all the submissions.

Abstracts due: 30 April 2013
Full papers due: 1 June 2013

To be submitted via email conference@amic.org.sg. Papers should NOT to be emailed to personal emails of conference organizers.

FORMAT FOR ABSTRACTS
1. Indicate your proposed “Conference Stream” in the subject line of your email
2. E-mail should contain the following:

    a. Paper title
    b. Author name, position, institution
    d. Short biography of Author (100 words); please do not send full CV
    e. Paper Abstract (500-700 words)

FORMAT FOR PAPERS
1. Should be written in English and, if you must use jargon, clearly explain its meaning.
2. Length is 5,000-8,000 words
3. Citation should be in APA Style
4. Submit using Microsoft Word or RTF document. Font Times New Roman, 12 pts. Please use plain text and not formatting.
5. Subject line should say “full paper and conference stream”

For more information please contact Ms. Rachel Khan at rekhan@amic.org.sg or Ms. Sangeetha Madasamy at sangeetha@amic.org.sg.

Note to all authors: By submitting your paper, you agree, that if your paper gets selected you will register and present the paper. All co-authors attending and/or presenting at the conference must register too.

Criteria for Review

Abstracts
Criteria used to judge abstracts will include, but not restricted to the following:
Topic
Theoretical Orientation
Research Design
Results
Quality of writing and organization of the paper
Indications of potential contributions of the study to communication research in Asia

Full paper
Criteria used to judge full papers will include, but not restricted to the following:
Purpose of the paper
Organization of the paper
Literature Review
Research Methodology
Relevance of paper to the conference
Subject of the paper representing a significant direction for communication research in Asia
Quality of writing

Evidences and conclusions relating to the purpose of the paper with the evidence supporting the conclusions

Call for Papers: New Trends in Political Communication - Evidence, Theories, Implications, Opportunities

19-20 September 2013
Milano, Italy

The 2013 conference of the ECREA Political Communication Section aims to explore new trends in the way politics is communicated in the public arena. More than a decade ago, Blumler and Kavanagh (1999) diagnosed a ‘third age of political communication’ characterized by media abundance, a growing pressure on political elites to adopt the media’s rule of the game and an increasingly critical citizenry that challenges both political authority and the opinion leadership of the media. The rise of Web2.0 with its interactive features and social media platforms has brought about new opportunities and new challenges to political communication, which are fundamentally transforming the relationship between rulers and citizens in modern democracy far beyond the emerging ‘third age’ described by Blumler and Kavanagh.

Papers are invited for presentation, which address the current changes in political communication. We are looking for new empirical evidence, but we are also keen to discuss fresh theoretical approaches to conceptualize the new trends and locate them in the wider context of the future quality of democratic life. Papers should engage with the following broad areas of enquiry:

• How do citizens engage with politics; is there evidence for new forms of political participation and what is the role of the media, both traditional and new, in citizens’ involvement; in what way do new media alter the relationship between citizens and between citizens and political leaders; how do citizens express themselves and communicate their concerns; etc.
• How do media organizations and journalists respond to the challenges of new communication technologies and wider social and cultural changes; is there evidence for new forms of presenting politics; to what extent has the coverage of political matters travelled away from traditional news formats and with what consequences; how has the changing nature of citizenship and new media affected the power balance between journalists and political elites; etc.
• How do political actors – parties, political leaders, governments, social movements – communicate in an environment of networked media abundance; how does the rise of populist leaders, identity politics and the ‘politics of outrage’ interact with new journalistic formats and new communication platforms; how do political leaders navigate between transparency and secrecy and between grass root politics and transnational decision making; etc.

Paper Proposals:
Paper proposals of about 400-500 words length should consist of a title page stating paper title, author(s) and contact address, and a blind abstract with the title as a running head.
All paper proposals will be double-blind reviewed.
The proposal should be submitted to the following address: ecrea-milan@unimi.it

Deadlines:
Deadline for the submission of proposals: 30 April 2013
Paper acceptance will be communicated within 3 June 2013
Registration deadline: 1 July 2013
Final paper delivery: 31 August 2013

Local organizer: Gianpietro Mazzoleni

Scientific committee:
María José Canel
Boguslawa Dobek
Frank Esser
Paolo Mancini
Gianpietro Mazzoleni
Patricia Moy
Lars Nord
Zrinjka Perusko
Franca Roncarolo
Katrin Voltmer

Conference venue:
Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche
U degli Studi di Milano
Via Conservatorio, 7
I-20122 Milano
www.sps.unimi.it