IAMCR 2014: Media, Religion & Culture Working Group - CfP - Deadline 10 February

Call for Proposals - IAMCR 2014 - Hyderabad

Media, Religion & Culture Working Group / The Religion, Communication & Culture Working Group

We invite proposals for papers to be presented at the annual conference for the International Association for Media & Communication Research at the  University of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, from 15th-19th of July 2014. The website address of the Hyderabad conference is http://www.aimcr2014.org.  Please, follow the link to read the general CFP before writing and sending you abstract: http://www.iamcr.org/congress/hyderabad2014/1113-cfp-2014.

The working group on Religion, Communication & Culture /Media, Religion & Culture is scheduled to meet Tuesday-Friday, 15th-18th of July, with a business meeting on Thursday. [The change of name of the working group from Media, Religion & Culture to `Religion, Communication & Culture’ – which was recommended and approved at the working group’s business meeting in Dublin - is subject to the IAMCR executive board approval].

The Religion, Communication & Culture working group will certainly welcome papers which address the media-religion aspects of the conference theme `Region as Frame: Politics, Presence, Practice’, including:

• What does the notion of "region" mean in different religions in comparison with other notions ("locus", "place", "territory" etc) and what are the implications for communication and culture?

• Regional framing of religious communication: commons and differences.

• Regional, ethnic and religious identity in communicative perspective.

• Religion, migration and communication: the role of Diaspora media in religious life.

• The phenomenon of "decentralization" of centralized religions and its impact on communication and culture.

• Local "Canonical territory" in the perspective of global communication.

• Regions - real and virtual - in religious practice and communication.

• Religious and secular media in regional level: competition, ignorance, cooperation.

• International and regional religious life coverage in media: agenda-setting priorities and challenges.

• Regional audiences' impact on local media landscape and religious life reporting.

But papers across the broad spectrum of research on the relationship of religion, media and communication are equally encouraged. There is hardly an established canon of research in this wide field of religion, communication and culture, although some nuclei in the current research agenda can be identified. These include:

• Images of religion in mass media; news coverage of religion.

• Religious communities and the media.

• Impact of media on religious practices whether personal or institutional.

• Theological approaches to the mass media.

• New media and religion.

• The emergences of the religious according to new mediatic conditions.

• Film and religion.

• Religious media.

• Religious public relations.

• The specificity of communication practices in religions given their singular content and claims.

• Religious communication processes.

• Media expression of faith and spirituality.

All approaches are welcome for proposed papers, provided they offer good quality and interesting, novel perspectives in their respective methodological nature.

Send your 300 to 500 words abstract by February 10th 2014. In accord with the instructions of the IAMCR organisers, all abstracts should be identified  for the specific working group (in this case, Media, Religion & Culture) and must be submitted via the central Open Conference System (OCS) at www.iamcr-ocs.org.  Submissions should not be sent directly to us at the working group.

The OCS system will open on December 1st 2013, and will close on February 10, 2014. No more than three abstracts may be submitted by any applicant.

It is intended that decisions on acceptance of abstracts will be communicated to individual applicants by the Religion, Communication & Culture/ Media, Religion and Culture working group no later than March 24th 2014. On the same day (March 24th) conference registration will open for bookings by participants.

The full text of accepted papers must be submitted no later than June 20th 2014.

We look forward to seeing old and new participants in the working group in Hyderabad.

Please share this notice with other academic researchers on media and religion.

The deadlines:

Co-convenors:

Professor Yoel Cohen, School of Communication, Ariel University Center, Ariel, Israel
ysrcohen[at]netvision.net.il

Professor Dominica Dipio, School of Languages, Literature & Communication, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
dodipio[at]yahoo.com

Professor Victor Khroul, Faculty of Journalism, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
amen[at]mail.ru