[Something a little different, but with clear relevance to presence; this is from Jan Van Looy via Gamesnetwork, the discussion list of the Digital Games Research Association, www.digra.org]
Hi all,
As many of you know, the ECREA Digital Games Research working group has recently been promoted to section status. For more info, please visit our website (www.digital-games.eu) or even better: join our Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/digitalgames/)
Having achieved section status means that we will have a full presence at the upcoming ECREA conference in Prague from 9 to 12 November 2016 (www.ecrea2016prague.eu).
“The Digital Games Research section invites contributions dealing with digital games as cultural objects and digital gaming as a social practice and related topics. Particular interest goes to understanding the cultural, psychological and sociological implications of digital gaming as a pastime and of digital games as cultural objects and mass-market products. Thereby we employ an inclusive definition of digital games as any game played on any digital device and explicitly do not limit the scope for submissions in view of the relative youth of the domain within the field of communication studies and the dynamic nature of the field. Moreover, we welcome contributions dealing with topics traditionally associated with specific subfields such as communication, but also humanities, media psychology, education science, economics and others. Finally, we deliberately aim for both qualitative and quantitative work in the belief that both deserve equal attention and are able to reinforce one another.”
Please find the full call for papers here (http://www.ecrea.eu/news/article/id/261) (and below)
Conference Call: ECREA’s 6th European Communication Conference ‘Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts, Presents and Futures’
ECREA and Charles University in Prague welcome the submission of abstracts for presentation at the 6th European Communication Conference to be held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 9 to 12 November 2016.
Jelen-Sanchez, Alenka 01.12.2015
The European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), in partnership with Charles University in Prague, will organise the 6th European Communication Conference (ECC). The Conference, due to take place in Prague from 9 to 12 November 2016, has chosen as its overarching theme ‘Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts, Presents and Futures’.
The organisers call for proposals in all fields of communication and media studies, but particularly invite conceptual, empirical, and methodological proposals on mediated memory cultures and working through discursive dislocations and cultural traumas intrinsic to (late) modernity, that link the general conference theme to the fields pertinent to each ECREA section.
CONFERENCE THEME: ‘MEDIATED (DIS)CONTINUITIES: CONTESTING PASTS, PRESENTS AND FUTURES’
Discontinuity is the far side of change. Late modernity – as the unstoppable flow of permanent changes – is haunted by the disparity of its various histories, geographies, ontologies and technologies. How are media and communication practices engaged in communicating across these divides?
The theme heralding European Communication Conference 2016 derives from the political history of the post-socialist region of which Prague as the conference host is a symbolic memento. After the collapse of communist totalitarianism, the countries in post-socialist Europe have been undergoing a crisis of continuity in the realms of political values, historical consciousness, moral sense of the self and the memory of the past.
The conference theme, however, reaches far beyond the post-totalitarian context and encourages its participants to reflect upon the question of how media and communication practices are involved in communicating over many other dislocations in political, cultural, temporal or spatial realms in all European countries. Acceleration in all aspects of social life generates pasts we cannot return to, territories we cannot access and selves we do not recognize any more. Are media capable of navigating through the related feelings of nostalgia, cultural trauma, guilt, shame or (be)longing? Does communication help to make sense of them?
Can a sense of home be mediated for those who are expelled from their countries or displaced by war, the paramount discontinuity? How is communication entangled in commemoration and remembering? What are the communicative means of identity building in the age of digitised archives which are not static storehouses of memories? Should we consider the media as an actor in economic discontinuities such as crisis and recession?
We cordially invite media and communication scholars to submit papers addressing these questions – together with other ramifications of the conference theme – and to share their ideas with the wide community of colleagues from Europe and beyond.
SUBMISSION AND DEADLINE
Proposals for individual papers, panels, and posters can be submitted to one of the 21 ECREA sections through the ECC conference website from 1 December 2015 to 29 February 2016. For section overviews, please click here.
Abstracts should be written in English and contain a clear outline of the argument, the theoretical framework, and, where applicable, methodology and results. The maximum length of individual abstracts is 500 words. Panel proposals, which should consist of five individual contributions, combine a panel rationale with five panel paper abstracts, each of which shall be a maximum length of 500 words.
Participants may submit more than one proposal, but only one paper or poster by the same presenting author will be accepted. Participants can still present in one extra session as second (or third, etc.) author of other papers or posters and can still act as chair or respondent of a panel. All proposals should be submitted through the conference website from 1 December 2015 to 29 February 2016. Early submission is strongly encouraged. Please note that this submission deadline will not be extended.
Abstracts will be published in a PDF Abstract Book. Full papers (optional) will be published via the conference submission system and available to the registered attendants after logging into the system.
TIMELINE
Submission of paper and panel abstracts and posters: 29 February 2016
Notification of Acceptance: 30 April 2016
End of Early Bird Registration Fee: 31 August 2016
Presenters’ registration deadline: 1 October 2016
Deadline for submission of the full papers (optional): 15 October 2016
Visit the 6th European Communication Conference website
Best,
Jan
Prof. dr. Jan Van Looy
iMinds-MICT-Ghent University
www.mict.be/janvanlooy
www.mict.be/gaming
Research Group for Media & ICT
Department of Communication Sciences
Korte Meer 7-9-11
B-9000 Gent – Belgium
T: +32 9 264 84 76
F: +32 9 264 69 92
www.mict.be / www.iminds.be