[Air-L] IAMCR Pre-Conference on Reimagining Climate Media Research: Current Challenges and Future Directions

[Hanna Morris]

Dear colleagues,

I'm pleased to share a call for abstracts for our IAMCR Pre-Conference on Reimagining Climate Media Research: Current Challenges and Future Directions https://iamcr.org/galway2026/esr-conf

The event details and instructions for abstract submissions are below:

Saturday, 27 June 2026, 9:00am - 4:00pm
Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

In collaboration with: Climate Social Science Network’s Working Group on Critical Studies of Climate Media, Discourse, and Power and IAMCR’s Environment, Science, and Risk Communication Section

Co-organizers: Hanna E. Morris, Emily Diamond, James Painter, Brenda McNally, Lluis de Nadal, Sylvia Hayes, Allen Munoriyarwa, Marc Esteve del Valle, Kelly E. Perry, Loredana Loy, Zeina Seaifan, Claire Konkes, Miki Kawabata, Sibo Chen

Contact: hanna.morris at utoronto.ca<mailto:hanna.morris at utoronto.ca>

We invite abstract submissions that reflect on the past, current, and future trajectories of the field of climate change communication. In line with IAMCR’s main conference<https://iamcr.org/galway2026> theme of Peripheries and Connections: Media, Communication, and Transformation, this event will bring together scholars from a range of career levels and geographical locations to take stock of research on climate change media and communication. In this pre-conference, we will collaboratively co-imagine possible new directions for climate change communication research that are transformative and have impact within, across, and beyond the university. To this end, we encourage practice-based abstracts from climate media-makers, NGOs, activists, and community organizers in addition to traditional scholarly papers. In stride with the recent essay titled Climate media amidst technopolitical change: challenges, transformations, and new directions for research<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-025-03936-1> (Wetts, Morris, Boykoff, et al., 2025), we also welcome scholars to reflect on what more impactful partnerships outside of the academy could look like and how to build and support these collaborative spaces. We also seek papers that explore peripheralised voices in climate change media and communication, the consequences of such peripheralisation, and how they can be brought into the centre of research and practice. Practitioners and scholarship from less-researched geographical contexts are encouraged.

Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:


  *
Transdisciplinary scholarship on climate change communication and how to build long-lasting, meaningful, and impactful partnerships with communities outside of the university
  *
Methodological or practical challenges in working in the inter/trans-disciplinary field of climate communication, especially amid authoritarian threats to researchers and media practitioners
  *
Climate communication as intervention – evaluating what “impact” means across academic, policy, community, and activist contexts
  *
Reflections on teaching and mentoring in climate communication, particularly in politically fraught and/or financially constrained institutional environments
  *
How recent developments in AI technologies are shaping what we know about climate change communication and how we do our research, teaching, and/or practitioner-work
  *
The enduring legacy of the deficit model of science communication and what it misses about how people engage with climate change communication
  *
The intersection of mental health, media, and climate-related issues, including possible oversights in how the field has conceptualized eco-anxiety, particularly among young people
  *
Exploring climate media from the peripheries – how climate change is communicated, contested, or silenced in the Global South, small island states, rural areas, and historically marginalised communities
  *
Community-led and Indigenous climate storytelling, including questions of epistemic justice, sovereignty, and co-production of knowledge
  *
Decolonial, feminist, and critical political economy approaches to climate media and communication
  *
Visual, artistic and alternative forms of climate communication research and/or practice


Abstracts should be no more than 500 words, including the author’s name (and co-authors’ names, if applicable), contact details, and affiliation(s). Please email all abstract submissions to hanna.morris at utoronto.ca<mailto:hanna.morris at utoronto.ca> with the subject line of “Climate Media Pre-Conference Submission” by March 24, 2026. We will send out notices of acceptances and instructions on how to register for the pre-conference by April 3, 2026. Participation must be in-person with no virtual or hybrid options.


Best wishes,
Hanna



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Dr. Hanna E. Morris, Ph.D.<https://hannamorris.com>

Assistant Professor, School of the Environment at the University of Toronto<https://www.environment.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/hanna-e-morris>

Author, Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power (Oxford University Press, 2025)<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/apocalyptic-authoritarianism-9780197807675>
Special Issue Editor, Backlash, Borders, and Bunkers: Antidemocratic Politics and Climate Change Communication (Environmental Communication, 2026)<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2025.2607041>
Co-chair, CSSN Critical Studies of Climate Media, Discourse, and Power Working Group <https://cssn.org/working-groups/critical-studies-of-climate-media-discourse-and-power/>
Co-chair, IAMCR Environment, Science, and Risk Communication Section<https://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/esr> <https://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/esr>
Associate Deputy Editor, Climatic Change<https://link.springer.com/journal/10584/editorial-board>