International Online Conference
25-26 March 2021

media.ameryka@gmail.com || @MediaConferen11 || #usmediaconference

“The American media plays a bizarrely outsize role in American elections, occupying the place of most countries’ national election commissions. Here, the media actually assembles the results from 50 states, tabulates them and declares a victor. And — we can’t really help ourselves — the media establishes the narrative to explain what happened.”
Ben Smith, How the Media Could Get the Election Story Wrong
The New York Times, August 2, 2020

We invite the submission of abstracts for Media in America, America in Media international conference to be held online on 25-26 March 2021. This is the third edition of a joint effort of the American Studies and Political Science scholars who aim to generate a cross-disciplinary debate that brings together divergent yet complementary voices reflecting on American media environment and America’s portrayals in media across the globe.

Since the conference is being held under the patronage of the Polish Rhetoric Society, we are honored to present our Keynote Speaker, Dr. Jim A. Kuypers (Virginia Tech’s School of Communication), a pioneer in the area of rhetorical framing analysis in political communication.

The conference Media in America, America in Media addresses a wide variety of topics across the disciplines of media, political science, language and cultural studies. They may include the following themes, among others:

Media in America:

  1. Media and their representations in America
    • Mass media, social media and personalized media
    • Rhetoric of media in America – ideology, persuasion, manipulation past and present
    • Media roles in the election process
    • Media as a tool in identity formation
  2. Media theories in America
    • Contemporary American theories of communication and media
    • Mediatization – American model vs. European model
    • Rhetorical perspectives on logos, ethos and pathos in media
    • Visual media studies, game studies – intertexts and intermediality
  3. Media technologies in America
    • Technological revolutions – trends and implications
    • Media personalities – the role and ethos of a (digital) journalist
    • Advertising – role, medium, case studies, micro-rhetorical situations
    • Big Data, fake news, bots and apps – new concepts, new challenges

America in Media:

  1. Images of America in American media
    • Representations of the majority and the minorities: ideological, feminist, religious, racial, ethnic, LGBTQ+ and other
    • New phenomena, new audiences – America in TV series, podcasts, games, hashtags, infographics, tweets, pins…
    • Adaptations in the media: history, literature and art in a new form
  2. Images of America in foreign media
    • American models – political and advertising campaigns, streaming platforms, newsrooms, sitcoms, talk shows, etc.
    • American media and international reception – a comparative study
    • Whose America? – a homogeneous or heterogeneous media image

 

Abstracts (150-250 words) in English + a short bio should be sent by January 15th, 2021 to media.ameryka@gmail.com. There is no registration fee. The details on the conference website will be announced soon.

For the 2021 edition of Media in America, America in Media conference publication we are pleased to announce the cooperation with two peer-reviewed open access academic journals: Res Rhetorica and New Horizons in English Studies. The post-conference volumes are scheduled for publication in 2022.

Due to the interdisciplinary character of the conference, the invitation is addressed to representatives of all scientific disciplines dealing with the topic of media.

You can also download the extended version of this CFP in a handy PDF version that you can share with everyone you know!

We look forward to seeing you at our online event,

The Organizing Committee
Anna Bendrat, Ph.D.
Elżbieta Pawlak-Hejno, Ph.D.
Anna Oleszczuk, M.A.
Agata Waszkiewicz, M.A.
Lidia Kniaź-Hunek, M.A.