Social Semiotics CALL FOR PAPERS AHRC Research Network

[Clare Teresa Burke]

  Dear All,

please see below the call for papers for our Cardiff seminar

AHRC RESEARCH NETWORK
Exploring the language of the popular in Anglo-American Newspapers 
1833-1988

University of Cardiff 28 March 2012

As part of the series of research seminars which will contribute to the 
Research Network we are inviting interested scholars to submit proposals 
of 300 words for a seminar to be held at the University of Cardiff on 28 
March 2012 entitled ‘The social semiotics of popular journalism: a long 
view’. It aims to bring together scholars from media and journalism 
studies, social sciences, linguistics and English to consider the 
important of semiotics as a tool for exploring the content and context 
of Anglo-American newspapers between 1833 and 1988. There is no charge 
for the event and there will be a number of keynote speakers to be 
announced at a later date.

The dates 1833-1988 frame the research network project as they are key 
dates in the development of popular discourse within Anglo-American 
newspapers. 1833 sees the first development of the Penny Press and 1988 
witnesses the peak in circulation of Murdoch’s British-based Sun. This 
long view will reinforce how important historical context is to the 
understanding of contemporary newspapers. Although this project will 
certainly seek to address some of the wider implications of the 
discourse of newspaper language it will proceed from a thorough textual 
exploration in the first instance. Proposals are invited which explore 
the ways in which popular newspapers during this period in either the 
USA or Britain have attempted to structure the language of their product 
to match particular aspects of the social experience of their readers: 
how these newspapers have functioned as social semiotic. This might 
include the structuring (within the confines of commercial appeal) of 
themes such as, for example, social class, national identity, political 
partisanship, gender, domestic duty, recreational identities, conflicts 
between group identifications such as trade union membership and 
individualist consumerist aspirations. Explorations of the 
sociopolitical significance of representations of the everyday will also 
be particularly welcome. The proposals should be empirically-grounded 
and might draw upon textual analysis, discourse analysis, the political 
economy of newspapers, ethnography or combinations of these and/or other 
methods, to say something concrete about the nature of life in the 
societies represented by popular newspapers during this period.
We plan to publish the best of the papers presented on the day in a 
special edition of the international, peer-reviewed journal Social 
Semiotics.

Please send your proposals or any questions you may have by the 30 
November 2011 to the Research Assistant for the project Clare Burke:
Clare.Burke at sheffield.ac.uk

Seminar organizers:
Professor Martin Conboy, University of Sheffield and Dr David Machin, 
University of Cardiff

For further details of the project please visit the website of the 
Centre for the Study of Journalism and History:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/journalismhistory

Best wishes
Clare

-- 
Clare Burke Davies
Journalism Studies
University of Sheffield
18-22 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 3NJ

Please note my normal working day is Wednesday