ICA@75: Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research

Addressing ICA’s 75th anniversary, the 2025 conference theme is an invitation to critically reflect on communication studies as a discipline and ICA as an agent and site of disciplinary development. Theme sessions will take stock of our past, critically review present developments, and chart out future avenues for communication research. We particularly welcome contributions speaking to three important aspects of the theme: communication scholarship as a transformative and stabilizing force in society, as a research practice that can be both revolutionary and consolidating, and communication studies as a disrupted and resilient discipline. In all these contexts, elements of disruption and consolidation are not necessarily antithetical but may productively be framed as a dialectical relationship.

ICA has made significant strides in amplifying the visibility of communication scholarship beyond academia. From democratic backsliding to climate change and conflict transformation, our discipline is poised to provide relevant answers to many burning questions of our time. Through public scholarship, communication scholars can make themselves useful by addressing the problems of the world’s current polycrisis. They may act as a transformative voice in society (by advocating social change) and as a stabilizing force (by maintaining democracy or social justice). A key issue in this context is the sometimes troubled relationship between scholarship and advocacy.

The public impact of scholarship is typically connected to a discipline’s ability to generate original knowledge. During the past 75 years, communication research has exponentially grown in terms of quantity. However, across a variety of disciplines and academic fields, such expansion is mostly attributed to the growth in studies that consolidate existing knowledge, pushing aside disruptive and revolutionary scholarship that forges new directions and breaks existing paradigms. The progressive fragmentation of the discipline may have contributed to this trend, along with persisting social and global inequalities in academia as well as a publication and review culture that ntends to disadvantage certain types of research and scholarly communities, including those from the Global South.

Communication research is facing these issues while itself being disrupted on multiple fronts and, perhaps, with unprecedented consequences. AI-based technologies have started revolutionizing scholarly practice with vast implications for the way we conduct and evaluate scholarship. In addition to high levels of insecurity and precarity, researchers face growing demands to publish in prestigious venues, obtain large grants, and participate in reviewing and evaluations, all putting heavy mental strain on scholars. Through this call, we encourage the discipline to think about possible ways to consolidate our research environment by growing resilience and developing effective coping strategies.

In this spirit, we invite submissions for papers and panel proposals that address the conference theme along the lines of the outlined three areas. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following issues and topics:

• Strategies to increase the visibility and impact of communication scholarship addressing the problems of our time

• The relationship between scholarship and advocacy as well as obstacles to public scholarship and ways to overcome them

• Research-based disruptions of dominant theories guiding communication inquiry

• Historical trajectories of communication scholarship that have disrupted other fields of research and where communication studies has been disrupted by other disciplines

• The cross-fertilization of communication research through disruptions originating from within

• Research-based disruptions of dominant modes of communication inquiry from the Global South

• The impact of AI on the conduct and evaluation of communication scholarship

• The political economy of scholarship for the discipline’s ability to generate original knowledge

• Assessments of growing academic demands and the resulting mental toll

• Strategies to grow resilience and cultivate solidarity networks among various academic communities

Submission and Deadline

Individual submissions and session proposals can be submitted to the annual conference through the ScholarOne submission system until 1 November 2024 @ 12:00 noon ICA headquarters time (EDT). Only online submissions will be accepted for the conference. Specific questions regarding a Division or Interest Group (DIG) program should be directed to the program planner for that DIG. All submissions and proposals should be written in English. Read through all the Division and Interest Group Calls for Papers.

Submitters are limited to three (3) individual submissions total. We recommend that the first author be the one to submit on behalf of the team. However, there are no restrictions on the number of presentations where a conference participant is listed as a co-author. Additionally, participants are welcome to serve as chairs, respondents, or participants for sessions.

Each unique paper/proposal may be submitted to only one Division or Interest Group, OR to the theme sessions. Submission of the same paper/proposal to more than one section is not permitted, and will disqualify the paper for presentation. You are welcome, however, to submit different papers or proposals to the same or different sections. 

Click to reference the conference submission guidelines.

Popular Media and Culture (PMC) division is a forum for scholarly investigation, analysis, and dialogue among communication and media researchers interested in a wide variety of communication forms, phenomena and strategic systems of symbols within the context of contemporary popular culture. Division members employ a range of critical and empirical methods to understand diverse popular communication acts, artifacts, products and processes that constitute, entertain, inform and/or persuade audiences. We are an open-minded, international community of scholars invested in questions of ideology, identity, resistance, power and pleasure in the domain of popular culture. 

General submission information

For the 2025 annual conference, the PMC division invites papers, panels, roundtables, and extended abstracts from scholars in all career phases, but especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups in academia. Papers can address the 2025 Conference theme, but can also focus on other topics that advance discussions in popular media and culture. Following requests in our latest business meeting, we will also accept research escalator extended abstracts.

Submissions must adhere to the guidelines in the ICA general call for papers. Authors are not allowed to submit previously published papers. Please also make sure to anonymize your submission or it will be automatically disqualified.

It is also very important for you to choose the right keywords to represent your manuscript. These keywords are used to select reviewers for your submission. The more specific you can be, the better the match between reviewers and submission.

Submission of the same paper to multiple divisions is strictly prohibited. Submission of material that does not meet Division requirements will result in automatic rejection.

Submission formats

• Full papers: Full papers should not exceed 8,000 words (+/- 25 pages) in length; tables, images, appendices, and reference do not count toward this limit. Papers should be in 12-point type, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins and with all identifying marks removed (i.e., blinded manuscript). Please note that accepted full papers may be scheduled either on panels or in an interactive (“poster”) session.

• Panel proposals: Panels may include four or five papers, or four papers with a respondent. Panel proposals should include contributions from at least two different countries, feature gender balance, and include not more than one contributor from a single faculty, department or school. These points are all based on the honor system. Please follow these guidelines yourself, as well, in creating your own panels as well as putting together paper sessions.

• Roundtable proposals: Roundtable sessions involve more speakers/session leaders (6-10) who give shorter, more informal presentations of their work. Roundtables are intended to provide more time for audience interaction/discussion. Submissions should articulate specifically why a roundtable format is optimal and provide a clear rationale for how audience interactivity will enhance these sessions.

• Extended abstracts (2,500-3,500 words) with a full paper submitted at least 6 weeks prior to the conference in May. Extended abstracts are intended for work in progress, offering the opportunity to present ongoing research. Extended abstracts should present in a concise way the purpose of the paper, main theoretical framework/ assumptions and, if applicable, research methods and preliminary and/or expected results. Extended abstracts should clearly state the contribution of the paper to popular media and culture. Submitters must delete all identifying information before submitting an extended abstract.

We are open to proposals for alternative formats, but these should be discussed with the Division’s Conference Program Planner Dr César Jiménez-Martínez before being submitted for review. Popular Media and Culture does not accept paper abstracts in lieu of paper submissions.

Importantly, panel and roundtable submissions should cohere around a single topic (one that is timely, and directly relevant to the division), with each paper/presenter providing a distinct perspective. Panels should aim to reflect and juxtapose different interregional, international, transnational, and global perspectives. Proposals whose participants and topics reflect the cultural, geographical, and gender diversity of the Division’s scholarly community, and which include both junior and senior scholars, will be viewed most favorably. Sessions consisting of multiple panelists from a single institution are strongly discouraged, as are panels that closely mirror one from a recent ICA, in either composition or topic.

Proposals for panel and roundtable sessions must include the following:

1.    A 400-word abstract for the panel.

2.    A 150-word abstract for each of the papers on the panel followed by a very brief (< 100 word) description of each panelist’s background and qualifications regarding the proposed topic.

3.    A 75-word description of the panel for the conference program.

4.    A 200-word rationale is optional for panel proposals and should be used only if there is a need to explain something above and beyond what has been included in other aspects of the proposal (e.g. a unique format, further clarification of how the papers fit together, connection to an external event, etc.). Roundtable proposals must include a rationale that speaks to why a roundtable is the preferred format.

ICA’s submission system may offer different word length limits, but the limits stated above take precedence.

If the work is accepted by the division, it is expected that you will present it as a registered attendee at the conference.

Research Escalator Extended Abstracts

The Research Escalator is a mentorship opportunity for PhD students with a work-in-progress to receive feedback and support on a project that is being developed, with the goal of eventually turning part of this work into a conference submission or journal article.

The submission of an extended abstract (between 800 - 1000 words) of the work, not including title, abstract, tables, figures, and references, should be made using the submission portal. Please delete all identifying information before submitting the abstract. Do not submit a research escalator abstract in the category ‘Extended Abstract’ described above -this will result in automatic rejection.

During the conference, time will be set aside specifically for a research escalator session. Submitters will meet with their mentors one-on-one in meetings to discuss their feedback on the submission (audience members are welcome and encouraged to attend these conversations). 

If the abstract is selected for mentorship, submitters are expected to send full paper 6 weeks prior to the conference so that they have sufficient time to review the manuscript.

Scholars interested in mentoring at the Research Escalator should email the PMC division program planner. 

How to submit:

Reviews -Please Help Out!

We are a community of researchers. It is therefore expected that everyone who submits to the Popular Media and Culture Division will volunteer to review papers. 

In one’s general profile set-up, please do not forget to select “yes” to review and select keywords belonging to our PMC division. This is very important, so we can match papers with each reviewer’s interests and expertise. 

If submitting a panel or roundtable proposal, be sure to remind fellow panel members to volunteer to review for the Division.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of following the ICA’s rules and fulfilling our membership obligations. We also appreciate those who are willing to do a couple of extra reviews for the coming conference. Those who have been especially helpful are nominated as ‘rock star reviewers’, among whom one of them is chosen across ICA to receive complimentary registration.

Thus, please be a good citizen and if you can do a couple of extra reviews, let us know: c.a.jimenez@lse.ac.uk and lauren.decarvalho@du.edu

Chairs

Scholars interested in chairing sessions should email the PMC Division program planners. The sooner, the better so interests can be matched. 

Awards

Every year, we honor the Top Faculty Paper and the Top Student Paper submitted to the division. Papers submitted via the conference submission site are automatically eligible for consideration for these awards.

Special Issue

We have an affiliation with the Communication and the Public journal. We are currently working to produce an issue with papers submitted to the 2024 conference, giving priority to academics belonging to traditionally underrepresented groups, including those from minoritized backgrounds, early career researchers and originally from/or working in the Global South. We will provide more information in due course about our take for the next conference. 

Get in Touch!

We always want to know more about what our members are doing. Please let us know about new publications, upcoming events and anything one wants to promote. We can give more visibility to one’s work through our website (Icapopular.com), Twitter/X (https://twitter.com/ICAPopular) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/groups/popularmediaculture/).

Contact

Those seeking help with the submission process are invited to contact the Division’s Conference Program Planners, César Jiménez-Martínez, c.a.jimenez@lse.ac.uk and Lauren J. DeCarvalho lauren.decarvalho@du.edu.