Reminder: CFP - Roundtable on Advancing the Discursive Turn in Communication Law & Policy Scholarship (6th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis: Discursive Spaces, Politics, Practices, and Power)

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Panel 27: Roundtable: Advancing the Discursive Turn in Communication Law & Policy Scholarship

As part of the 6th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis: Discursive Spaces, Politics, Practices, and Power
http://www.ipa-2011.cardiff.ac.uk/

Dates - Thursday June 23, Saturday June 25, 2011
Location - Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Deadline for abstracts - January 31, 2011 (see instructions below)
General Inquiries to [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Conference website - www.ipa-2011.cardiff.ac.uk <http://www.ipa-2011.cardiff.ac.uk>
Supported by ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability & Society

For complete panel listing for other CFPs:
http://www.ipa-2011.cardiff.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/IPA_2011_Panels.pdf

Panel 27: Roundtable: Advancing the Discursive Turn in Communication Law & Policy Scholarship
Chairs: Becky Lentz, McGill University, Canada, [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask] and Thomas Streeter, University of Vermont, USA

Interpretive methods are well established as legitimate modes of scholarship in a wide range of research fields: not just cultural studies or other culturally-inflected fields like feminist media studies, but also more traditional fields like education, critical race studies, law and literature, policy studies, science and technology studies, international relations, cultural political economy, and urban research and planning. However, even though the larger discipline of media studies is focused on the communicative, with few exceptions this discursive turn is not yet as common in the subfield of communication law and policy scholarship, in particular, telecommunications policy scholarship, which has become more important in recent years due to the convergence of industries, media platforms, and legal doctrines used to regulate them.

This panel examines several reasons for this blind spot and offers insights into how discourse theory, particularly critical discourse analysis, offers a distinctly communications-oriented point of entry into communication law and policy scholarship on policy formation, policy advocacy, and policy resistance. More specifically, it shares examples of how discourse theory is being used as an analytical lens for research on policymaking and policy advocacy. For example, how do legislative, regulatory, judicial, corporate, and ‘third sector’ institutions’ policy discourses and discursive processes construct, shape, reflect, act upon, or negotiate the construction of social identities, social relations, and subject positions in the media, online, and in society? How do the discursive instruments of policymaking serve to signify the world, its processes, entities, and relations into systems of knowledge and belief? How does a discourse perspective expose the wordplay involved in policy making and the degree of strategic nuance, or the discursive artifice, involved in writing legislation or rules? Finally, how does a discursive approach expose the malleable and ambiguous nature of regulatory categories themselves?

Proposals for Papers

Paper proposals will be submitted via email directly to [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask] by 31 January 2011 with “IPA Paper proposal Panel 27” in the subject heading.

All paper proposals should be sent as Word file attachment and contain the following:

Title of your paper
Name, institutional affiliation(s) and email(s) of the authors/presenter(s)
Abstract (max 300 words) which includes your theoretical framework, research questions, primary and/or secondary data sources, empirical methods used, and key findings
Up to five keywords
Please use Arial 11 to facilitate further processing.

Paper givers will be notified about acceptance of their papers by mid February.

For those paper proposals that are accepted, full papers of no more than 6,000 words will be due April 23, 2011. They should be emailed to both [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask] and the panel convenors, writing “Full paper” in the subject heading. Submitted conference papers will be accessible for registered participants through the conference website.

Papers from the conference may be considered for a special issue of Critical Policy Studies, Editors - Frank Fischer (Rutgers University, USA) and Steven Griggs (De Montfort, UK); Forum Editors – Navdeep Mathur (Indian Institute of Management, India) and Douglas Torgerson (Trent University, Canada). To reach the editorial team of Critical Policy Studies, please contact Helen Hancock at [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask].