COMMUNICATION, CAPITALISM AND CRITIQUE: CRITICAL MEDIA SOCIOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

European Sociological Association / RN18 in cooperation with the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST) of the Polytechnic and University of Turin invites applications for the international conference Communication, Capitalism and Critique: Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century".

We live in times of deepening economic, political, social, ideological and ecological crises that are expressed in widespread precarious labour, the commodification of (almost) everything, the rise of new nationalism, populism and authoritarian forms of capitalism, and ecological destruction. The display of power and counter-power, domination and spaces of power struggles, and the commons and the commodification of the commons characterise modern society. Contradictions and antagonisms between the haves and the have-nots shape contemporary Europe and beyond. Media and communication are fields of conflict in this power struggle: they are power structures and sites of power struggles, able to support both the expansion and the commodification of the commons.

ESA RN18 calls for contributions that shed new light on theoretical and analytical insights, in particular, but not exclusively, addressed to any of the following:

1. Critical Media Sociology and Capitalism
2. Critical Media Sociology and Critical Political Economy of Media, Information and Communication
3. Critical Media Sociology, Gramsci and Hegemony
4. Critical Media Sociology and Cultural/Communication/Digital Labour
5. Critical Media Sociology, Consumption and Production in Urban Processes
6. Critical Media Sociology, Ecology and Climate
7. Critical Media Sociology, Gender, Social Inequality, Identity and Subjectivities
8. Critical Media Sociology, New Nationalism and Authoritarianism
9. Critical Media Sociology, Democracy and the Public Sphere
10.Critical Media Sociology, the Commons and Alternatives

Key dates:

• Submission deadline: 1 April 2020
• Notification of selected abstracts: 15 May 2020
• Conference: 10-12 September 2020

• Conference Call for Paper (822 KB)