Call for Participants: ICA 2014 Panel

Updated 10/30/13 

Dear friends:

Colleague Sarah Jackson and I are seeking participants for a panel on the ICA Conference theme of Communication and the "Good Life" as it is constructed in television in relation to issues of diversity and inclusion.   

Panel Proposal for Popular Communication and Ethnicity and Race In Communication Divisions

As Seen on TV: Identity, Inclusion, and the “Good Life”

This panel interrogates the conference theme of Communication and the “Good Life” in relation to the concepts of multiculturalism and inclusion in diverse, industrialized, postcolonial societies like the United States, the United Kingdom and others through the prism of mediated entertainment. What does the good life look like in the 21st century according to popular culture? Who is able to partake of it? What norms, values and social hierarchies are communicated in relation to race, gender, and sexual identity in these programs and through what means? Where is inequality acknowledged and how/is it challenged? 

To answer these questions, this panel will examine representations of identity and identity politics in major television dramas featuring diverse casts. We define the concept of diversity broadly and intersectionally to include race/ethnicity, ability, gender, and sexual orientation. Given the role television plays in constructing aspirational Western democratic values like equality, inclusion, and, in the United States, the “American Dream,” papers should illuminate the ways contemporary TV drama communicates dominant or subversive constructions of the good life in increasingly multicultural and multiracial societies.

Prospective participants should send submissions including a 150-word abstract, title and their institutional affiliation to c.bell@neu.edu and s.jackson@neu.edu by Saturday Nov 2nd. Please include specific ideas re programs to be analyzed. We also welcome questions, and suggestions. 

Please feel free to share this with colleagues who may be interested.

Note, the final ICA deadline is November 4th: http://www.icahdq.org/conf/index.asp.