Filozofická fakulta
Třída Svobody 26
Olomouc 77900
Czech Republic
Due to the rise of the radical and populist right wing in the US and in Europe and due to pressures of globalization, immigration has become an important electoral and political topic. The immigrant, often metaphorically built as a problem or threat, has become the unwitting star of the political and cultural struggles for redefinition of national identities and liberal values such as tolerance, religious freedom, freedom of expression, or the political landscape itself, traditionally organized along the left/right axis. This process develops in the context of transformation of the relationship between politics, media and social networks, and the nature of the media itself. Thus, proximity of journalists and politicians in the process of news production, interests of the owners of the media, declining profitability, emergence of social networks and community media, loss of credibility of the "traditional" media and other factors shape the current media landscape and the debate on migration.
Palacký Univerzity in Olomouc has the honour to invite specialists in critical discourse analysis and related disciplines– anthropology, sociology, media studies, etc. – to debate on Latin American immigration to Europe or North Americain line with theabove reflection. To raise academic exchange and discussion, we propose the following topics. We prefer papers based on analysis of a corpus of oral, written or multimodal texts, rather than those purely theoretical. The length of the contribution should not exceed 30 minutes.
Thematic focus
1) Immigration and politics
2) Construction of the image of immigrants in media and on social networks
Abstracts of maximum 500 words to be sent by email to cielo@upol.cz before 15 February 2017. The summary should be sent in a MS Word compatible format and must contain the title of the paper, the thematic focus, keywords, the author's name, academic affiliation and address. We will have Dr. Leo Chavez (University of California, Irvine, USA) and Dr. Otto Santa Ana (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) participating as one of the keynote speakers.