Preconference: ICA Young Scholars Preconference on Interventions in the Practice of Visual Communication Research

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Intervention comes in different forms. Research questions aim to intervene in societal and philosophical problems, scholarly conferences and initiatives intervene within the halls of academia and the practice of contemporary research, and publication intervenes in both scholarly and public debate.

As society becomes increasingly mediatized through both digital technologies and nostalgic returns to traditional folk arts, it is essential to analyze the specifically visual aspects of communicating in the social world. And yet, because of this same cultural and technological upsurge in visual communication, scholars who focus on the visual are often spread across ICA divisions based on the non-visual content of their work, from health communication to popular communication to rhetoric to technology and beyond. Scholarship is also increasingly presented using visual images, to both public and academic audiences. This raises challenges in communication and publication, particularly for young scholars.

We aim to bring together a critical mass of emerging and senior scholars to discuss, reflect, and challenge each other on our interventions into the visual. In this way, the preconference is also an intervention into scholarly careers in the still-growing field of visual communication studies.

Sub Unit

• Sponsored Sessions

Chairs

• Samantha Anne Close, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication

• Ayellet Pelled, University of Wisconsin

• David LaMar Morris II

• Giorgia Aiello, U of Leeds