2015 ECREA Political Communication Conference

27-28 August 2015 in Odense, Denmark at the Centre for Journalism, Dept. of Political Science, University of Southern Denmark

Call for papers

The theme of the upcoming conference is “Changing political communication, changing Europe?”. Currently, we are witnessing massive changes in media and political systems all over Europe. To mention a few of these changes, the number of communication channels, in particular social media continues to grow, making media diets more and more individualized. Media organizations around the Europe have been hit hard by the economic crisis, and newspapers struggle to reinvent their business model. These changes make journalists vulnerable to economic and political pressures. Politically, the global economic crisis and sociodemographic changes put pressure on governments for structural reforms. We see that trust in institutions and elites as well as social cohesion are under pressure, while EU scepticism and populism are on the rise. At the same time new social movements are emerging, transforming the dissatisfaction and ideals of citizens into new forms of political participation. Technological developments have simultaneously given governments more means of surveillance of their citizens and made them more vulnerable to information leaks.

This conference will address these diverse changes. We will discuss how and under which conditions changes in the political and media systems reinforce, but also counteract each other. We will discuss the normative and empirical implications of these changes for the functioning of our democracies and their political communication practices as well as the implications for our scholarly research and teaching. We welcome new empirical studies as well papers presenting new theoretical approaches relating to the theme “Changing political communication, changing Europe?”, in the broadest sense. Among the many possible approaches to the conference theme, some questions that submitters may want to address could be:

• How do social media, media polarization and fragmentation of news use affect social cohesion and political participation?

• Is media logic particularly suited for populist politicians and anti-EU messages?

• How do new demands of transparency and surveillance techniques affect government communication?

• What is the role of social and traditional media in new modes of citizenship and political activism?

• How has the economic crisis affected the power balance between journalists and politicians?

Submission details

• You are asked to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words.

• Submission will undergo scholarly peer-review.

• When submitting, you will be asked to specify who will present the paper. Only one presentation per presenter can be accepted.

• Deadline for submission is 1 April 2015.

• Notifications of acceptance will be issued no later than 1 May 2015.

Please send your submissions to: ecrea [at] sam.sdu.dk—thank you!

For more details see: https://ecreapoliticalcommunication2015.wordpress.com/.