Health Communication & Change and Communication & HIV/AIDS Working Groups – CfP

Grupos de trabajo: Comunicación para la salud y el cambio y Comunicación y VIH/SIDA

The Health Communication & Change and Communication & HIV/AIDS Working Groups of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) invites submissions for its open session at the 2017 Conference, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, from 16-20 July.

Conference theme: Transforming Culture, Politics & Communication: New media, new territories, new discourses – Transformaciones de la cultura, la política y la comunicación: nuevos medios, territorios y discursos.

Discourses around culture, politics and communication have changed in the new media scenario,   not just as a term that defines media forms, content,  and products but also as practices that support creative participation of the users which can fuel or challenge policy decisions. The changed discourse exerts a substantial dynamism in the realms of individual lives and contemporary culture. New Media have invariably grown in a technologically enabled society, both as a means of social exchange,   and as media of social change.

Varied manifest forms of new media are observed in instances of web-enabled activities like blogs and social networks, economic and business applications, offshoot journalism and novel ways of extending the reach of traditional media such as newspapers and television. Apart from these usages, new media have become prominent as a contrived space of political action, in both state and non-state milieu.  New media in the hands of the neoliberal states which provide ICT enabled services have been reconstructing citizens into globalized consumers.  Political and social movements facilitated by the access of and to ICT enabled services and applications draw attention to the political function of new media. There has been a phenomenal growth in business and economic application of new media platforms, from online retail to new media enabled businesses models.

The health scenario has also been impacted widely due to the advent of ICT enabled platforms. Governments are intervening to address health issues using mobile health (mHealth) interventions. mHealth involves the use of mobile computing, medical sensors, and communication technologies for healthcare.   While there are strong advocates of mHealth who claim broad ranging and potentially lifesaving clinical and practical applications, there are critics who say that the limitations of mHealth are far too many.

Similarly, while there is an increased accessibility to health information from the new media, users are often likely to get confusing signals from different sources. With a wide range of platforms available to health information seekers, the new media are giving rise to new global health communities. While researchers and practitioners are exploring newer domains in these social, behavioural, cultural and contextual realms, there is almost a unilateral opinion that the new media have a great potential to personalize health communication, health management and healthcare delivery.  We are sure all these transformations offer a great opportunity to discuss, deliberate and share.

We are particularly interested in facilitating interactions between practitioners and researchers and sharing and creating strategies that can increase the relevance and uptake of research findings. We also encourage papers that engage the following themes:

• how digital media is transforming people’s relations to medical authority and creating space for redefining notions of health and the normal and the pathological;
• the contexts in which online communication is a source of empowerment or disempowerment for users;
• contexts and implications of mediatisation within the fields of health and medicine; ethical dimensions of public health interventions;
• ways of evaluating the impact of health promotion campaigns; relationships between media and health literacy;
• media and citizen/consumer discourses about health risks
• emerging methodologies of research in health and HIV and AIDS communication
• changing discourses of health communication in the new media scenario and the challenges ahead for scholars, activists, advocates and practitioners.

We encourage abstracts/papers from multiple disciplinary perspectives and are particularly interested in qualitative approaches and critical theoretical contributions. The sessions of the working groups will be organised to suit emerging themes from submitted abstracts.

Individual papers and panels are possible, but all proposals must be submitted through the online  IAMCR Open Conference System at http://iamcr-ocs.org from 1 December 2016 – 9 February 2017, preferably in English and also in Spanish. Early submission is strongly encouraged. There are to be no email submissions of abstracts addressed to any Section or Working Group Head. Unless otherwise stated by a Section or Working Group, abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words in length.

It is expected that for the most part, only one (1) abstract will be submitted per person for consideration by the Conference. However, under no circumstances should there be more than two (2) abstracts bearing the name of the same applicant either individually or as part of any group of authors. Please note also that the same abstract or another version with minor variations in title or content must not be submitted to other Sections or Working Groups of the Association for consideration, after an initial submission. Such submissions will be deemed to be in breach of the conference guidelines and will be automatically rejected by the Open Conference System, by the relevant Head or by the Conference Programme Reviewer. Such applicants risk being removed entirely from the conference programme.

Upon submission of an abstract, you will be asked to confirm that your submission is original and that it has not been previously published in the form presented. You will also be given an opportunity to declare if your submission is currently before another conference for consideration.

Presenters are expected to bring fully developed work to the conference. However, we also welcome submissions related to works in progress, so long as there is evidence of considered methodological or theoretical engagement. We see the conference as a useful opportunity for both emerging and more established colleagues to learn from each other in developing their work. Prior to the conference, it is expected that a completed paper will be submitted to Section, Working Group, Session Chairs, and/or discussants.

Decisions on acceptance of abstracts will be communicated to applicants by their Section or Working Group Head no later than 3 April 2017. For those whose abstracts are accepted, full conference papers are to be submitted by 26 June.

If you have questions related to this call for papers, please contact the co-chairs of the working groups (see below).

For further information, please consult the conference website or contact the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) by email at cartagena2017@iamcr.org.

Languages

This Working Group accepts abstract submissions and presentations in English and Spanish.

Criteria for Evaluation

Submitted abstracts will generally be evaluated on the basis of:

• theoretical contribution
• methods
• quality of writing
• literature review
• relevance of the submission to the work of the Section or Working Group
• originality and/or significance

Key dates >>>

Co-Chairs:

SubbaRao M Gavaravarapu
gmsubbarao(at)yahoo.com

Nanna Engebretsen
nanna.engebretsen(at)hil.no

Ravindra Kumar Vemula
ravi(at)efluniversity.ac.in

Kate Holland
kate.holland(at)canberra.edu.au

Yolanda Paul
yolandapaul(at)gmail.com

Contact us

Email cartagena2017@iamcr.org
Phone +57 1 291 6520 Ext. 6239
Fax +57 1 291 6520

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