IAMCR - International Association for Media and Communication Research

The Diasporas and the Media working group is calling for papers for a session of the working group meeting in Braga 2010, to continue to foster research and debate in this exciting new field.

Media research and theory has given a great deal of attention over the last three decades to increasing flows of media products and services on a global scale, it has only recently shown interest in the flows of people which the media tend to follow.

Migrants, refugees, sojourners, exiles, expatriates and especially diasporas of people who are living outside their actual or imagined homelands form markets for cultural or language-specific programming, both from global and local sources, and generally make use of the media in new and interesting ways. What is more, they often establish new media networks and institutions and engage in the production and distribution of content that reflects their diasporic experiences. This fluid, adaptive relationship of media and people on a global basis has implications for national media and cultures, as we have known them, even for our understanding of the very concept of culture itself.

Thus, as the relationship between diasporas and globalization is enhanced and intensified as a result of the transnationalization of the media, processes of reconfiguration of place, space and culture are set in motion which affect everyday life for diasporic communities.  Electronic media, old and new, increasingly link producers and audiences across national boundaries, thus fostering the deterritorialization/ reterritorialization of diasporic identities, and challenging and transforming established notions of the nation-state; of tradition, heritage and citizenship; and of modes of belonging.

The Working Group aims to bring together interested researchers to discuss these processes and their broader implications, and to present empirical and theoretical work around the following general themes:

• the interplay of the transnational & the local in diasporic communications
• diasporic communications & the making of diasporic identities
• transnational diasporic communication strategies and practices
• diasporic audiences & cultural politics
• diasporic cultural production & consumption
• integration, cultural separatism & hybridity
• immigration and the media
• diasporic media and their place in the community media landscape

Submission information:

Abstracts should be submitted to the coordinator by 31 January 2010 (papers will be assessed and provisionally accepted on the basis of the abstracts). Announcement of acceptances: March 15, 2010.

Further information about this conference will be available at the conference website.

If you are interested in presenting a paper please:

• send a message in the first instance to the coordinator - Roza Tsagarousianou (tsagarr[AT]westminster.ac.uk) mentioning your name(s), institution, and the title of your abstract/paper, so that we know what to expect, and
• submit your abstract to the same email address by 31 January 2010.

Abstracts should contain:

• title of paper,
• name(s) of author(s) including name of institution, postal address, telephone, fax and e-mail addresses, the paper title and the abstract text (at least 300 but not more than 500 words).