I am honored to serve as 2019 program chair for the Information Technology & Politics Division of the American Political Science Association.
The conference will be held in Washington, DC from August 29 until September 1, 2019. The deadline for abstract submissions is is Tuesday, January 15, 2019, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.
Here is the division call for papers. Please consider submitting an abstract via the conference website.
The Information Technology & Politics section invites paper, panel and roundtable proposals relating to research on any manifestation of political activity that revolves around, or is shaped by, digital media and information technology, broadly construed. We particularly encourage proposals connecting to the APSA 2019 conference theme of “Populism and Privilege”. Theme-related questions that can be addressed by authors in the ITP section include, but are not limited to, the following: How are populist leaders and parties taking advantage of digital media to set agendas, frame issues, mobilize supporters, and persuade voters? Are supporters of populist political actors using digital media in ways that are distinctive compared with the rest of the electorate, and towards what political ends? Are populist political actors mobilizing new cadres of activists and voters, and is political equality strengthened or weakened as a result? What can we learn about the complex and interdependent contemporary media ecosystem by studying how populist political actors and their supporters engage with information technologies? What role are the affordances of digital media playing in facilitating or hindering the spread of different types of populist messages and worldviews? The section encourages ambitious proposals that tackle underexplored questions based on innovative theoretical backgrounds and appropriate research designs. The section emphasizes methodological pluralism and invites submissions based on a wide variety of social science research methods.
Cristian Vaccari 