From July 9-13, 2023, the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)‘s annual conference will take place in Lyon (France). The main conference theme is “Inhabiting the Planet: Challenges for Media, Communication and Beyond“. Christian Fuchs, who is Professor of Media Systems and Media Organisation at Paderborn University’s Department of Media Studies, will deliver the opening plenary talk “Humanity, Alienation, and (In)Justice in the Digital Age“ to around 1,200 on-site participants from around the world and many more participating online. Past IAMCR conference opening plenary speakers included leading social theorists and Media and Communication Studies scholars such as Manuel Castells, Wendy Chun, Raewyn Connell, Achille Mbembe, Vandana Shiva, Armand Mattelart, Bernard Miège, or Douglas Kellner.
Founded in 1957 with the help of UNESCO, the IAMCR is with around 3,000 members from around 100 countries and 33 sections and working groups that cover a vast area of themes and subfields, the world’s leading global association of scholars in Media and Communication Studies.
In his IAMCR plenary talk, Christian Fuchs asks how we can best understand and explain the challenges humanity is facing today in the light of digitalisation. In order to provide answers, he presents the foundations of an approach to research that stands in the tradition of the approach of the Political Economy of Communication and combines critical theory, critical empirical social research, and digital ethics.
Fuchs, who is a long-time member of IAMCR and its Political Economy Section, comments: “Humanity stands at a crossroads today. It faces big risks and challenges that are not caused but mediated by digital technologies such as the Internet, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, social media, mobile phones, industry and labour 4.0, etc. If societies will continue to exist and if so, how they will look in fifty years from now, is uncertain. Human praxis is the decisive factor that shapes how we will live, work, decide, resolve conflicts, and make meanings in the future. What Media and Communication Studies need today in the light of these challenges is a critical theoretical, empirical and philosophical approach to the analysis of society, the media, communication, and digital technologies that foregrounds the importance and key role of human praxis in society and aims at overcoming universal alienation and society’s (digital) injustices”.
More information about the IAMCR Conference 2023 and Christian Fuchs' opening plenary talk: https://iamcr.org/lyon2023/opening
