CFP Description

​

The New York State Communication Association invites submissions on any topic within the broad, interdisciplinary field of communication, or otherwise of interest to scholars and practitioners in our field and related areas of inquiry. We welcome submissions of complete papers or work-in-progress, extended abstracts, panels, roundtables, fishbowl conversations, student posters, and other innovative and engaging programs.

 

The 2027 NYSCA Conference will feature keynote presentations from:

​

• Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education) and a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. She is the author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2023). She is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series on free speech that was released on public television in 2023 (and is also available on YouTube). Her book Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights was named a New York Times “notable book” of 1995 and was republished in 2024 as part of the New York University Press “Classic” series. She delivered the 2019 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture for the Institute of General Semantics and was named an IGS Fellow in 2025.

• Maryanne Wolf, Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Previously, she was the  John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service and  Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. She is the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (2007, HarperCollins), Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain (Edited; York, 2001), Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (2016, Oxford University Press), and Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World (August, 2018, HarperCollins). She delivered the 2024 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture for the Institute of General Semantics and was named an IGS Fellow in 2025.

• We will also feature a presentation and performance by Grammy Award-winning activist and singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked.

 

Submissions are not required to address the conference theme, but of course we welcome submissions that do. In doing so, they can reference one or more of the theme’s key terms:

 

Science. At a time when all of our fact-based professions have been under attack, we encourage submissions that address the role of science in society, that engage with the topic of empiricism and scientific method and its applications professionally and in everyday life, that are grounded in the key research traditions of science communication and health communication, that provide critical analysis of public discourse regarding science and medicine, that analyze the nature and spread of pseudoscience in the US and globally, that examine the diffusion of innovations in science and medicine, and that discuss the relationship between science and politics.

 

Sanity. Mental health has been a growing concern in the 20th century, and psychology and behavioral research have long represented a source of major contributions to communication scholarship. We encourage submissions that address how communication scholarship can contribute to theory and practice regarding mental health, studies regarding social stigma and controversies, topics such as neurodiversity, gender dysphoria, as well as depression, anxiety, stress, and other contemporary mental health challenges. We also welcome scholarship regarding the concept of sanity and its relation to culture, counseling and psychotherapy, coaching, the human potential movement, the politics of mental health, and the effects of media and technology on individuals’ behavior, cognition, emotions, and perception.

 

Symbols. Our species differs from all other forms of life in our use of symbols, chief among them language and speech, but also the written word, mathematics, visual images and myriad other forms of artistic expression, as well as more elaborate forms such as myths, rituals, and all manner of cultural production. We encourage submissions that address symbolic communication in general, and the human capacity for meaning-making, as well as interspecies communication. We welcome scholarship based on semiotics, semiology, linguistics, language arts, literary theory, and general semantics, and that draws on a variety of approaches such as psychoanalysis, linguistic relativism, structuralism, poststructuralism, critical/cultural studies, etc., and that employs various theories and methods for the analysis of media, popular culture, subcultures, etc.

 

Society. Human beings are a social species, and communication is the way in which we connect to one another, in dyadic relationships, families, small groups, organizations, neighborhoods, towns and cities, and nations. We encourage submissions that consider the function and effects of communication and media within social contexts, urban and rural communication, the role that media and communication play within social institutions, the political and economic forces influencing and governing our media and communication industries and institutions, and the role that codes and modes of communication play in shaping society historically and in the present day. Alongside quantitative research and critical/cultural studies, we welcome scholarship on human groupings as social systems based on systems theory, gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, and submissions utilizing the media ecology approach to studying the human condition.

​

Submission Guidelines

Completed or work-in-progress paper submissions should be no more than 25 double-spaced pages (not inclusive of title and bibliography pages) and should not include any identifying information. The author, affiliation, and contact information should be provided separately in the body of the submission email. Papers should include a running head with an abbreviated title.

 

Any standard style is permitted. Completed or work-in-progress paper submissions from undergraduate and graduate students will be considered for student paper awards. Student submissions should indicate “undergraduate” or “graduate,” along with an abbreviated title in the running head. For all other presentation formats, including panel proposals, posters (students only), roundtables, fishbowls, and other innovative programs, please include the title, the lead contact or panel chair, the participants/authors, affiliations, contact information, and a description of the panel, poster, roundtable, etc. For each paper in a panel or roundtable proposal, please include a title, a list of authors, and abstracts of no more than 125 words for each presenter.

​

Statement of Professional Responsibility

A statement of professional responsibility should be included on the first page of all paper/panel/roundtable submissions, or in the email accompanying video/audio files, and should state the following: “In submitting the attached paper/panel proposal, poster or roundtable, I/ we agree to present at the 2026 NYSCA conference if it is accepted. I/ we further recognize that all who attend and present at NYSCA’s annual meeting must register and pay the required fees.”

 

Contact Information

Direct inquiries and email submissions to Lance Strate via nysca27@generalsemantics.org

​

Deadline

All submissions and proposals are due no later than midnight EST on June 1, 2027