Greetings colleagues! I hope your fall semester has gotten off to a smooth start. Before semester demands get too overwhelming I wanted to share with you the Media Studies Interest Group call for papers and panels. (Please note a separate call will be going out this year for Original Media submissions.) I hope you’ll consider submitting to the Division for the Minneapolis convention by the October 3rd deadline!
Call for Papers and Panels
2017 Central States Communication Association (CSCA)
Annual Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota
March 16-18, 2017
Create
The Media Studies Interest Group (MSIG) invites submissions of competitive papers and thematic panels on all aspects of media studies for the 2017 CSCA Convention in Minneapolis, MN. We seek to promote provocative scholarship on all forms of mass, social, and interpersonal media. Possible areas of examination include media and culture, media effects, media technology, audience studies, producer studies, textual analyses and other studies of mediated communication.
This year’s theme is Create. As media scholars this theme is particularly well suited for what we do. Many of us examine the creation of media content and the production process. Others focus on the ways in which media create emotional connections or a sense of identity among audience members. Media facilitate the creation of relationships, be it a single individual’s relationship with a media text, relationships with one or more individuals who share an affinity for a particular genre, or simply our relationships with one another. Media create portraits of cultures and societies. And, media create unique pedagogical experiences in the classroom. These ideas and much more will be explored by MSIG in Minneapolis.
Original research, multimedia work, discussions, themed panels, and debates are all encouraged. All submissions must be made electronically using Microsoft Word. Submissions are invited under the following three categories:
Papers: The Media Studies Interest Group is seeking cutting-edge research regarding all aspects of media studies, including mass communication, mediated interpersonal communication, media technology, media and culture, media theory, media reception, or other studies of media and mass communication for the 2017 conference. We welcome scholars from all paradigms and methodologies who examine all forms of media with regard to audiences, texts, technologies, effects, producers, communities, and culture. Considering the theme of the conference, papers examining creative explorations of paradigms, theories, production, methodologies, audiences, discourse communities, and pedagogies are especially welcome.
Papers may follow the current editions of APA, MLA, or Chicago styles. All submitted papers must be the original work of the author(s). Please send your submission to cscamsig@gmail.com as a Microsoft Word file. Graduate and undergraduate students should type “STUDENT” on the upper right-hand corner of the title page. If the paper will be a student debut, please type “DEBUT STUDENT” on the upper right- hand corner of the title page. To be considered a student debut paper, (1) the author must be a graduate or undergraduate student, (2) the paper must have single authorship, and (3) the paper must be the author’s first paper to be presented at CSCA. Indicate if author(s) are CSCA members. All author-identifiers should be removed from the document (excluding previous scholarly works cited in the paper and listed in the references section). The e-mail subject line should include the abbreviation CSCA and the title of the paper. All 2017 submissions must also include a Competitive Paper Submission Form submitted with the paper. This form is located on the CSCA home page at www.csca-net.org. Papers without the accompanying submission form will not be distributed for review.
For the sake of timely and thorough review, papers must be no longer than 25 pages of actual text written within accepted publishing guidelines (not including appendices, references/bibliographies, etc.). Papers not meeting these submission guidelines may not be distributed for review.
Panels: The Media Studies Interest Group welcomes submissions of proposals for paper panels, roundtable discussions, spotlight panels, and debate panels exploring media studies. This year, the interest group specifically seeks panels or discussion sessions dealing with the conference theme of Create. Thus, we welcome any submissions that would, for example, explore creative new ways of thinking about media past, present, or future. How might we best pursue new and emerging theories in order to create new ways of thinking about media? In what ways might media scholars create insightful pedagogy that inspires our students? Other possible topics could touch on the ways in which media producers create content or media’s impact on helping audience members create a sense of identity or cultural reality. These are just a few of the directions possible panel proposals could take.
Panels examining this conference theme should be sent to cscamsig@gmail.com using either the Paper Panel Submission Form or the Discussion Panel Submission Form. Both are available on the CSCA home page at www.csca-net.org. Panel proposals that fail to use the appropriate submission form will not be reviewed.
The Media Studies Interest Group presents three awards annually. The Samuel L. Becker Award is given for the top graduate student paper. The Becker Award includes an individual certificate and a $150 cash award. At the annual business meeting, the Media Studies Interest Group also presents awards for top faculty paper and top original media submission (details for original media will be sent in a separate call).
Due to budget and access, the only technology that can be made available for your projects will be a multimedia projector and speakers that you can connect your laptop computers (or other equipment) to. There should be cables available for this, but there may not be Internet access readily available. Any technology requests must be made at the time of submission.
Submissions for all categories must be complete and submitted by October 3, 2016 at midnight (CST). Questions and other communication about the Media Studies Interest Group may be directed to W. Joe Watson (Baker University) at Joe.Watson@bakeru.edu.