VAKKI Communication Research Association arranges a Symposium on February 13–14, 2025 under the theme of Communicational Relations.
Relations are at the core of communication. Relations between people, between organizations and stakeholders, and between humans and technologies, are built and maintained, damaged and repaired, expressed and negotiated in and through communication. Relations may be personal or professional, hierarchical or equal, harmonious or tensional, and of instrumental or intrinsic value. From another perspective, communication may be conceptualized as relational by nature, as something that emerges in encounters – for example, when a picture on the screen sparks an emotion in the viewer or invites the user to click on it.
The plenary speakers are:
– Johanna Arnesson, Umeå University, Sweden
– Joëlle Basque, Université TÉLUQ, Canada
We welcome you to discuss communicational relations in the symposium held in February. We invite proposals for section presentations and workshops that consider the theme in different organisational, workplace and media contexts, for example from the following perspectives:
– Stakeholder relations, public relations, media relations, investor relations etc. in organizational communication
– Communities, collaborations and audience engagement in the hybrid media system
– Human-computer interaction, user experience, accessibility
– Group, workplace, and leadership communication
– Societal power relations, (in)equality, inclusion; discursive and ideological struggles
– Interculturality and multilingualism
– Relational approaches to communication (e.g., CCO).
Please submit your section presentation abstract (max. 3,000 characters excluding references) via electric form available at https://link.webropol.com/s/vakki2025 by December 9, 2024. The papers will be selected based on the scientific quality of the abstract. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by December 20, 2024. The abstracts can be written in Finnish, Swedish, English, or German. The final presentation should be in the same language as the abstract.
At this stage, we also welcome proposals for workshops. The purpose of the workshops is to provide participants with a more informal setting to exchange intellectual ideas and practical experiences on specific topics. Please submit your proposal for a workshop theme as an attachment (max. 3000 characters in rtf or doc format) to symposium[at]vakki.net by November 1, 2024. Please, state in the proposal whether you will call for abstracts for workshop presentations or invite the speakers yourself. Further details on registering for the workshops will be provided in the second Call for Papers in November 2024.
The symposium will be held on site in Vaasa. The working languages of the symposium are Finnish, Swedish, English and German. After the symposium, presenters are invited to submit their papers to the VAKKI publication, which is a JUFO 1-level peer–reviewed open access publication. The publication will be published at the end of 2025.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the symposium organizers, symposium[at]vakki.net