Call for Papers

Communications and Economy
(A Pre-Convention Conference at the National Communication
Association Conference in San Antonio, Texas, USA)
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
8:45 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of numerous attempts to
rethink what constitutes and is most salient for understanding 'the
economy.' Many of these approaches have taken up ‘communication’ and
‘information’ as the key terms around which contemporary social
relations are organized, displacing and reconfiguring what was
traditionally considered to constitute the ‘economy.’ At the same
time, the mainstreaming of business news and information on
television and the long list of best-sellers which use the tools of
economics to explain the world (Freakonomics) or promise self-
improvement (Don’t Worry, Make Money) are signs of how the vocabulary
and concepts of economics have become an almost constant presence in
everyday life.
The goal of this mini-conference is to bring together people from
across many areas of research to consider these two phenomena in
tandem and explore the manifold relations between communication and
discourses around the ‘economic.’ This conference hopes to initiate
dialogue around two general questions: What does paying attention to
questions of economy as traditionally defined (questions of
production, distribution and consumption) bring to the study of
communication? What does Communication Studies (often focused on
questions of meaning and representation) bring to our understanding
of economics as a social and cultural phenomenon?

Those interested in participating are asked to submit a short
proposal (max. 200 words) outlining their presentation. Presentations
will be approximately 15-minutes in length. Proposals must be
submitted by September 1, 2006 via email to Mark Hayward at the
address: mhayward@email.unc.edu. Any further questions can be
addressed to this email as well. Notification of conference
participants will be made by September 20, 2006.

Speakers: Lawrence Grossberg (University of North Carolina – Chapel
Hill); Richard Maxwell (Queen’s College – CUNY); Toby Miller
(University of California – Riverside)

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