[Air-L] ICA 2023 Preconference on the Legacies of Elihu Katz

[Park, David]

CFP: ICA Preconference on the Legacies of Elihu Katz

Preconference date & location: 25 May 2023, as part of the International Communication ‘Association annual conference at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel

Submission deadline: 20 December 2022. (there is no registration fee for this preconference)

Elihu Katz (1926–2021) was a peerless scholar, colleague, mentor, administrator, and friend to many in the field of communication. His passing has left the field with an absence that calls out for remembrance and for scholarly consideration. This one-day, all-plenary preconference will create a space for scholarly exchange on Katz’s life, works, and themes—a forum, in other words, for active, critical engagement with his legacy for the field. The preconference invites presenters to explore, critique, and extend Katz’s contributions to communication scholarship. Some will situate Katz’s legacies in pertinent historical contexts; others will use his work to imagine media futures; still others will consider Katz’s many roles (teacher, institution-builder, broadcast pioneer, mentor).

Some lines of inquiry presenters may wish to explore include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

* considerations of journalism and the public that draw upon Katz’s configurations of Gabriel Tarde’s ideas

* explorations of the promise and limitations of the idea of the media ritual

* elaborations upon the idea of the two-step flow of media effects

* diffusion processes in varied media and networks

* the evolution and contemporary significance of the concept of media events

* perspectives on Katz’s ideas that come from disparate subfields in communication, including but not limited to: interpersonal communication, organizational communication, and intercultural communication

* philosophical interrogations of Katz’s ideas and research

empirical studies that draw explicitly on Katz’s ideas, for instance cross-cultural readings of American television inspired by the Export of Meaning* (his co-authored book with Tamar-Liebes)

* Shifts of emphasis in media studies between content providers and audiences

* Katz’s place in the canon of media studies

* new ideas concerning the Katzian intersection of mass communication and interpersonal communication

* transpositions of Katz’s ideas into new arenas, like human-machine communication and virtual reality

* historical scholarship addressing:

* Katz’s involvement in broadcasting and mass media, including his role as a creator of Israeli Television

* the export of Katz’s ideas to communication and media studies departments around the world

* the impact of Katz’s ideas on academic fields and areas of practice outside of communication

Abstracts of 400 words (maximum), in Spanish or English, should be submitted no later than 20 December 2022. Draft papers will be pre-circulated in advance of the preconference, with all participants expected to read in advance. Send abstracts to the pre-conference organizers at: legaciesofkatz at gmail.com<mailto:legaciesofkatz at gmail.com><mailto:legaciesofkatz at gmail.com<mailto:legaciesofkatz at gmail.com>>

Presenters will work within a timeline established to ensure that full papers are available for password-protected precirculation a month or more before the preconference, on the expectation that presented and non-presenters attendees read the papers in advance. The benefit of pre-circulation is that the bulk of time devoted to each panel can be given over to discussion among presenters and other attendees.

Authors will be informed regarding acceptance/rejection no later than 10 January 2023. The preconference will take place on 25 May, 2023, and will be *free to all participants*, thanks to generous support from the Department of Communication and the Smart Family Institute of Communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.