Protest Participation in Variable Communication Ecologies: Meanings, modalities and implications
Alghero (Sardinia, Italy)
24-26 June 2015
Contemporary collective action, social movements, civic and political protests are characterized by a growing complexity of actors, contents, repertories, contexts, and effects. Grappling with the implications of late modernity, scholars worldwide have reflected on the cross-fertilization of individual practices and collective mobilizations. They have foregrounded unconventional forms of engagement, through reflexive, expressive and embodied acts of dissent cutting across the cultural, political, and social domains, in persistent as well as increasingly transient modes of organisation and belonging. Within this field, some accounts graft social media as an independent variable that would mitigate the democratic deficits of mass-mediated and institutionalised politics. Others would warn of the power imbalances and the inequalities in participation particularly social media reinforce or heighten.
Seeking to kindle an imagination that situates social media in lived experience and practice, this conference intends to unpick the history and the present of linkages but also of any signs of a conscious uncoupling of network technologies, broadcasting media and physical places where protest participation is enacted. In doing so, we aim to tackle the significant challenges posed to democratic politics, social theory and research by resultant variable communication ecologies.
The organizers invite theoretical reflections and empirical analyses tracking continuities and changes in protest participation arising in the blurred lines between social media, broadcasting media and physical places.
Following the Conference, participants will be invited to submit a revised version of their papers for consideration by the journal iCS – Information, Communication & Society which will dedicate a special issue to the conference proceedings.
Further information and submission details: protestcommunicationecologies.com
Deadline for abstracts: 30 January 2015