Call for Abstracts

4th Annual Global Communication Summit

“COVID-19 and Discourses of Inequality”

February 25–26, 2021 // Fully Virtual // Free Registration

Hosted by the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston

Extended Abstracts due Friday, December 18, 2020

To submit an extended abstract, click the button below to send via Easy Chair. You will need to create an account to make a submission.

The Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston invites abstracts for its 4th annual Global Communication Summit. The theme for 2021 is COVID-19 and Discourses of Inequality.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a significant global health crisis, discourses about the virus and resulting social distancing measures have exacerbated impacts on the lives of historically marginalized and/or vulnerable populations. Discrimination, underlying economic and structural inequalities, and human rights concerns such as xenophobia, abuse, and violence have unequally heightened the risks to and consequences of COVID-19 for older adults, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, frontline or essential workers, refugees, migrant workers, prisoners, LGBTQI, and Asians, among others.

We encourage scholars to consider the role of communication in challenging, fostering, rendering visible, and/or perpetuating lived inequalities during COVID-19. Possible questions to explore include but are not limited to:

  • How have mainstream discourses of COVID-19 othered vulnerable populations at micro, meso, and macro levels?

  • What voices have been erased or amplified in dominant discourses of COVID-19?

  • How do structures (media, policies, organizations) reproduce and/or challenge communicative inequalities during COVID-19?

  • What ideologies comprise global discourses of COVID-19 and articulations of inequality?

  • What are the psychosocial and material consequences of communicative inequalities during COVID-19?

  • How do historical patterns of health inequality inform COVID-19 discourses?

  • How can social actions resist and transcend discourses of oppression and marginalization during COVID-19?

  • How have public health messaging and government mandates reified the marginalization of vulnerable social groups?

We welcome abstracts from a wide range of perspectives, including from non-Western scholars and/or with a focus on cases from outside the United States. Qualitative, quantitative, and rhetorical work is welcome. The conference language is English.

Abstracts should include:

  1. Paper title

  2. Names, affiliations, and a brief bio of authors

  3. 3–5 keywords

  4. A 300–400 word extended abstract (excluding references) that includes a description of the research project and its significance, specific research questions or hypotheses, methods, overview of findings (if available at the time of submission), and relevance to the conference theme.

The deadline for submission is December 18, 2020. Emailed or late abstracts will not be accepted for review. Presenters will be notified by mid-January.

For more information, please contact the 2021 Global Communication Summit chair, Dr. Jill Yamasaki (jyamasaki@uh.edu).