An IAMCR pre-conference
This pre-conference hosted by IAMCR’s Communication in Post- and Neo-Authoritarian Societies Working Group (CPN), examines public and communicative processes around (de-)industrialisation in Europe and North America, focusing on questions of voice, visibility, representation, and inequality. It takes a pluralist approach, combining analyses of public discourse with research grounded in lived experience.
Call for proposals
Submissions are closed. Dowload the pre-conference programme
If you are planning to attend the pre-conference as a non-presenter, please register by 15 June 2026 by emailing Anke Fiedler, anke.fiedler@uni-greifswald.de.
A selection of papers presented at the pre-conference will be invited to contribute to a special issue of the open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed Global Media Journal (German edition).
Date and time
Saturday, 27 June 2026
11:00–17:00h followed by a reception
Location
Room F202, St Patrick’s Campus, DCU University, Dublin
Drumcondra Rd Upper, Drumcondra, Dublin, Irland
About the pre-conference
Industrialization in Europe and North America was associated with profound societal transformations, most notably the urbanisation of populations and the creation of mass workforces. Across generations, many families expected their children to follow established occupational trajectories into mines, steelworks, docks, mills, and factories. For much of the twentieth century, heavy industries offered relatively stable employment and social security, contributing to gradual improvements in working-class conditions up to the 1960s.
Deindustrialization, by contrast, has often been experienced as a process of decline and loss – in economic as well as social terms. Beyond the erosion of material living standards, it has entailed the loss of pride, security, and self-worth among urban working-class communities. As industries disappeared, so too did the social infrastructures that sustained everyday life. Urban spaces fell into decay, amenities declined, and the voices, values and identities of communities were increasingly marginalised within broader national imaginaries. For many affected communities, this history continues to shape present experiences of being voiceless, unrepresented, and neglected.
The proposed pre-conference seeks to explore these dynamics by examining the public and communicative processes around (de-)industrialization. It aims to take a pluralist approach to industrial transformation, attending both to macro-level public discourses and to the lived experiences of communities navigating industrial decline and post-industrial restructuring. By foregrounding communication as a central site through which industrial transformation is interpreted, contested, and experienced, the pre-conference invites critical engagement with questions of inclusion/exclusion, voice, (in)visibility, (mis/under-)representation and inequality in societies shaped by ongoing processes of deindustrialization.
Convenors
- Anke Fiedler (Chair of the Working Group “Communication in Post- and Neo-Authoritarian Societies”/CPN, University of Greifswald), anke.fiedler@uni-greifswald.de
- Julian Genten (University of Greifswald), julian.genten@uni-greifswald.de
- Darren Lilleker (Bournemouth University), DLilleker@bournemouth.ac.uk
- Maike Dinger (Bournemouth University), mdinger@bournemouth.ac.uk
- James Morrison (Stirling University), james.morrison@stir.ac.uk
The pre-conference is financially supported by the IAMCR Sections and Working Group Project Fund.
