IAMCR 2013 - Law Section - Call for papers

alt The Law Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites submissions for the IAMCR 2013 conference to be held from June 25-29, 2013 in Dublin City University in Dublin (Ireland). The deadline for submissions of extended abstracts and panel proposals is January 28, 2013.

The conference will be held under the general theme: Crises, 'Creative Destruction' and the Global Power and Communication Orders. The overall conference theme engages with the concepts of crisis and ‘creative destruction’, associated with periods of intensified flux, change and all-round, multi-dimensional processes of innovation. The theme invites reflections on whether or how the current deep economic/financial crisis and its attendant gales of ‘creative destruction’ may promote fundamental or multiple shifts in the geo-political and communication orders globally. The theme can also be linked to the ways in which users, civil society, states and markets creatively adapt their practices, strategies and tactics in the wake of a crisis, which is often accompanied by the emergence of new values and subsequently new policy frameworks.

The Law Section welcomes papers and panels on any subject of communication law, policy, regulation, doctrinal principle, implementation, and evaluation, as well as those related to the conference theme. All theoretical and methodological approaches are welcome.

Possible research questions related to the conference theme include but are not limited to the following:

How have communication laws and regulations contributed to contemporary global crises?
How might communication laws and regulations be altered in ways that might help to mitigate or minimize the effects of contemporary global crises?
When and how do changes in laws and regulations create tipping points that shift relationships among social, financial, and political systems?
How have today's global crises affected the ways in which laws and regulations are interpreted and implemented?
To what extent have current global crises undermined the effective "rule of law" altogether?
As today's crises undermine the effectiveness of geopolitically recognized governments, what types of law-like activities are appearing to take the place of government in the realms of governance (private as well as public, informal as well as formal decision-making) and governmentality (the cultural habits and predispositions that enable and sustain governance and government)?
How are movements such as Occupy/Indignados that attempt to focus attention on the need to change the conditions that generated today's global crises affecting the law through "pre-policy" endeavors?
Given the global interconnectedness of the forces generating today's global crises, which legal venues are likely to be particularly influential in their resolution, and how should we think about interactions across levels of the social structure and across national boundaries?
How, and in what ways, have today's global crises fueled or affected the harmonization of laws and regulations across national boundaries, irrespective of differences in legal and political systems?
How are property rights, privacy rights, speech rights, and access to government information being affected by today's global crises?

The Law Section will look for opportunities for hosting joint sessions with other sections and/or working groups.

Submission information

The Law Section welcomes proposals for papers bearing on the above or related issues by submitting an extended abstract (maximum 1,000 words). Abstracts should state the title, the methods or approach used, and briefly introduce the theoretical framework and empirical research on which the paper will be based. The scholarly presentation of accepted submissions can take place in several types of sessions: paper presentation sessions (i.e. 4-5 presenters each with 12-15 minutes, requiring full paper submitted on time) and high intensity sessions (i.e. 6-8 presenters each with 5-7 minutes). IAMCR accepts presentations and papers in English, French and Spanish, but it is requested that extended abstracts and panel proposals, if at all possible, be submitted in English to facilitate the reviewing process.

Proposals for panels are also welcome. A proposal should have four to five papers and should provide: (1) a panel title, (2) a framing text and (3) short abstracts for all the papers with paper titles and authors. The framing text (maximum 500 words) should contain the overall idea and goal of the panel, and how it responds to the Law section call. A panel chair and a discussant should also be proposed. The 500 word panel framing text and the individual paper abstracts need to be submitted separately, but please be sure to add the panel name to each of the individual paper abstracts! They will be reviewed and based on this review we will accept, accept with revisions, or decline the panel.

Submission of extended abstracts, panel proposals and (if accepted) full papers can only be done online via IAMCR’s Open Conference System (OCS) at http://iamcr-ocs.org from 15 November 2012 to 28 January 2013 (midnight GMT). Submissions only sent via e-mail will not be reviewed.

It is expected that, normally, only one abstract will be submitted per person for consideration by the Conference. However, under no circumstances should there be more than two abstracts bearing the name of the same applicant either individually or as part of any group of authors to a single IAMCR conference in general. Please note also that the same abstract or another version with minor variations in title or content must not be submitted to other IAMCR Sections or Working Groups for consideration, after an initial submission. Such submissions will be deemed to be in breach of the conference guidelines and will be automatically rejected by the Open Conference System (OCS), by the Head or by the Conference Programme Reviewer. Such applicants risk being removed entirely from the conference programme.

The deadlines are:
- January 28, 2013 (midnight GMT): Submission of extended abstracts and panels via OCS (submissions will be assessed by double blind review)
- February 28, 2013: Announcement of acceptances
- May 28, 2013: Full papers due via OCS (around 7,500 words, excluding notes and references). There is no second round of reviewing for acceptance.

If a proposal is accepted, the presenter must also register for conference participation in order to be included in the final conference programme of the Section.

For any questions about the Law Section, please contact:

Chair, Law Section
Sandra Braman - braman [at] uwm.edu

Vice chairs:
Slavka Antonova - slavka.antonova [at] und.edu
Mohammed Ullah-Sahid - ullah_sahid [at] yahoo.co.uk