Mission
Statement of the
Mediated Communication,
Public Opinion and Society (MCPOS)
The
Psychology and Public Opinion Section (PPO) of IAMCR was founded at
the Singapore Conference (2000) as one of two successors of the
former Sociology and Psychology Section of IAMCR – the other one was
the Audience Section.
Following
discussions among members and of the successful practices in the
years since then, the intention and actual work of the Section can
be characterized by the following goals and intellectual interests:
The
section keeps the traditional aim of the creation of the section to
be the home for IAMCR members that do research on the link between
socio-psychological process involving Media Consumption and
creation and change of Public Opinion in all its' facets.
Secondly
the section keeps and promotes news approaches to the
traditional empirical research tradition on Media Effects and
effects of new media and new communication technologies on the
individual, on the family, on social groups, communities, national
societies and the global arena.
The
section members are also interested in empirical research on the
context of communication and the media, especially on the
production, content, use and reception.
The
section is also interested in studies about complex phenomena such
as media events, rituals, elements of popular culture or the change
or media and culture.
Results of
quantitative and qualitative research are of interest, and also the
discussion of methods and methodology. The section also is
interested in promoting discussions about theory of whatever kind
that refer to communication and the media and may have a potential
of better understanding the impact of the media and communication
on all facets of life in our days.
In
addition, ethical and political questions have a space in the
section. All types of communication and human interaction, all types
of media and their use and consumption, including the media of
standardized content like TV and newspaper, the mediated
interpersonal communication e.g. by mobile phone or chat on the
Internet and the upcoming interactive communication as it takes
place in computer games or with robots of different type.
In search
for relevant theories, the section organized special panels in the
past conferences to discuss the work of Erving Goffman, Juergen
Habermas and Alfred Schuetz and their implications for communication
studies and intends to continue in the next conference with a panel
on the work of Pierre Bourdieu.
The
sessions of the section at the annual conferences of IAMCR are thus
arenas for all kinds of both broad and general scientific discussion
as well as specific and methodological discussions. (see separate
special call for papers for the Paris- 2007 conference)
The
section welcomes everybody who is interested in the issues described
above to participate
in the
activities of the section. As far as it is possible, the section
also intends to support conferences and symposia beside the annual
conference of IAMCR, e.g. regional ones or those which are concerned
with specific new themes, e.g. on Media Events (in 2007, see call
for papers) or on Mobility and Media. Reflexivity on methodological
issues especially on multi and cross cultural research and questions
of comparatives methodology.
IAMCR Section Psychology and Public Opinion –
Continuity and Programmatic Change
The
General Assembly in Singapore has approved a motion by the section
to be renamed from “Sociology & Social Psychology” to “Psychology
and Public Opinion”. This name change has been motivated by
discussions in the International Council and a special committee
chaired by president-elect Frank Morgan to review the section
structure of our association. The president of this section has been
involved in these discussions as a committee member and author of a
paper which suggested a totally new, more theoretically based
section structure. The basic argument in this paper was to found
sections on research objects rather than disciplines, epistemologies
or problems. The discussions among section heads, in the Council,
and later on in the General Assembly have shown that existing
organizational structures are rather resistant. However, a few
changes were agreed, among them the renaming of this section into
Psychology and Public Opinion.
There are mainly three arguments which speak in favor of this new
label. First, it is at least partially a name which refers to a
specific object of investigation, i.e., public opinion and public
opinion processes. This section has a tradition in dealing with
public opinion processes, particularly processes affected by the
mass media and theories trying to explain the dynamics in public
opinion. With this new name we will continue to attract scholars who
work in this area. Second, so far IAMCR has had no explicit home for
research on the cognitive factors involved in the communication
process. While the most successful section in ICA “Information
Systems” (highest membership) hosts particularly scholars who are
interested in information processing and storage, including
theoretical fields like schema-theory, ELM and others, we had no
similar section in IAMCR. We hope to attract these colleagues to our
section and contribute to a growth in membership. Thirdly, the terms
“psychology” and “public opinion” are closely linked. Public Opinion
processes usually involve socio-psychological (e.g. in the social
perception of opinions) as well as cognitive-psychological processes
(e.g. reduction of perceptions into schemata).
Following the Singapore conference we have updated the list of our
section members which now is close to hundred scholars.
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Heads
of Section: