[Air-L] CFP: Political communication in (times of) crisis

[Antonio Martella]

*Call for Papers*

Political communication in (times of) crisis

Annual conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication -
Bologna, Italy, from 30 June to 1 July 2022.

All information about the conference are available here:
https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2022/


As early as the 1990s, leading figures in the discipline contended that
political communication has entered a prolonged phase of crisis. Jay
Blumler (1997) defined this crisis as the awareness that practices of
political communication had to change radically in order to maintain the
fundamental function of "communication for citizenship".
At the dawn of the new millennium, the increasing centrality of digital
platforms in the "ecosystems of political communication" (Esser and Pfetsch
2020) gave further impetus to the perception of a mounting crisis hitting
the field and discipline; and such crisis was understood in term of
instability, heterogeneity, and "chaos" (McNair 2006). This idea can be
found also in Andrew Chadwick's theory (2013) concerning "hybrid"
reconfigurations of media systems. In fact, Chadwick, while highlighting
some dysfunctionalities of the hybrid media system, rejected an exclusively
negative understanding of the “permanent crisis” characterizing political
communication.

The second half of the 2010s was instead characterized by a new phase of
pessimism, which led researchers to search tools and frameworks to study
political communication in "times of crisis" (Davis 2019). Indeed, these
years saw a final collapse of trust in political and media elites, a new
rise of nationalism and populism, mounting information overloads for
citizens, and a multiplication in existing “regimes of truth” (Waisbord
2018).

Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. The health crisis turned
political, economic, and social, providing a new framework to the idea of
crisis. The emergence of an unprecedented overlap between political and
crisis communication produced a generalized shock that has directly
affected our field of study. All actors in political and institutional
communication had to face and directly manage the structural uncertainty
characterizing the second modernity (Beck 1986).

Therefore, the global experience of the pandemic forces scholars and
practitioners in political communication to deal with a renewed concept of
crisis. In this historical moment it is even more important to resist the
temptation to simply choose between optimism and pessimism. On the
contrary, addressing responsibly the crisis of political communication
means interpreting it as a challenge and trying to provide new theoretical
lenses, to develop new methods for research, and to elaborate new and
renovated knowledge. The pandemic has highlighted a widespread difficulty
in elaborating solid theories and concepts based on empirical evidence. At
the same time, it has shown the urgency of sound research contributing to
our understanding of contemporary political and social phenomena without
relying exclusively on the quantity of data collected, but also on their
capacity to answer relevant questions.

Starting from these premises, we encourage the submission of papers that
engage with the idea of crisis to address challenges faced by political
communication research in the pandemic age. We are interested both in
theoretical essays and empirical studies and we welcome different
methodological approaches and research designs (quantitative, qualitative
and mixed-methods). Issues of interest include (but are not limited to):

* the nature of attention economies and dynamics of agenda building in
contemporary media ecosystems, with particular reference to the pandemic
period;
* the organization of election campaigns in moments of exceptionality for
democratic norms and practices (e.g. lockdowns, physical distancing);
* trends in communication and political leadership styles during the
pandemic and their implications in the relationship with other actors in
the public sphere;
* new forms of extra-institutional political communication related to
protests, social movements, and civil society actors during the pandemic
* politicization of science, health and of their communication in the
public sphere, with particular reference to the relationship between
democracy, freedom of expression, collective interest and public health;
* transformations and degenerations of public debate in different media
arenas with particular reference to incivility and polarization;
* the role of data, platforms, algorithms in processes of political
communication and journalism by institutional and extra-institutional
actors;
* transformations in political journalism, with particular attention to the
boundaries between journalism and other forms of information;
* the impact of AI on the transformations of political communication and
journalism;
* methodological and theoretical proposals dealing with the transformations
of political communication emerged as a result of the pandemic experience,
also in comparative perspective.

Although the conference focuses on the multiple interpretations of the
"crisis" in political communication, papers addressing other aspects of the
relationship between media and politics are also welcome. Papers by PhD
students and young researchers are warmly encouraged.
Paper proposals should include name, affiliation and email address, a
title, an extended abstract (600/800 words excluding references), and
bibliographical references. Authors should also explicitly indicate whether
they request the paper to be considered for publication (after the
conference) in “Comunicazione Politica”, the flagship journal of the
Italian Association of Political Communication. In the case of ex equo in
the evaluations provided by referees, priority will be given to authors who
have expressed interest for publication on Comunicazione Politica.

Timeline

- The deadline for submitting proposals is 13 March 2022.
- Notification of acceptances will take place by 1 May 2022.
- Contributions will be uploaded to the conference paper room by 13 June
2022.

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*skype*: antonio.martella24