CFPs — Disability at ICA’26 Cape Town 4–8 June 2026

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victor zhuang

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Sep 23, 2025, 11:41:21 AMSep 23
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Dear all,

We are an international group of disability communication and media scholars who have been active at the International Communication Association (ICA). To find out more about our work, visit www.icadisability.com. We are hoping to organize panels around disability, communication, and media for the ICA 2026 conference, which will be held in Cape Town from 4–8 June 2026. The main theme of the 2026 conference is Communication and Inequalities in Context. For more information on the conference and the theme, see: https://www.icahdq.org/mpage/ICA26-theme

More broadly, we hope to galvanize interest in disability, communication, and media at ICA. We are planning to submit various panels to divisions/interest groups at ICA and have tentatively invited disability scholars to chair them. This is part of a larger move to organize and center disability at ICA. We are building upon our efforts last year at ICA 2025, where we organized four panels spotlighting disability, communication, and media research (as well as other earlier efforts).

We welcome submissions from postgraduates, early-career, emerging, and established scholars, activists, or practitioners that:
  • Take on a critical disability studies lens, one which centers disability as a generative form of knowledge and/or identity.
  • Submissions should consider both the specific ICA division/interest group’s call and the main conference theme.
  • See below for more details on the various ICA divisions/IGs targeted (and requirements)

Do consider sending in a submission for consideration by 10 October 2025 (Anywhere on Earth) to icadis...@gmail.com.

If accepted, we will put up your submissions as a panel to the respective division/IG for consideration.

We endeavour to get back to you regarding acceptance to our panel submissions by 22 October 2025.

 

Please also note the following:

  • Your submission should indicate the specific CFP that you are interested in.
  • We need to balance diversity in the panels (as defined by ICA), so please do indicate any relevant information in your author bios.
  • All presentations should ideally be made in person. However, per ICA policy, limited exceptions may be made for disability accommodations. If you would like to request specific disability accommodation to present virtually, please indicate this in your submission to us.

We are also happy to discuss ideas, so feel free to reach out. 

 

Any questions should be directed to icadis...@gmail.com.


CFP 1: Activism, Communication, and Social Justice

Proposed Panel Chairs: Abdul Rohman (RMIT Vietnam) and Filippo Trevisan (American U)

In this panel, we are keen to explore how media (especially digital forms) is leveraged for disability activism and justice. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
  • Discrimination, exclusion, and inequalities in media platforms used for disability activism
  • Inequalities within and across disability activisms
  • Disability activism addressing inequalities
  • Disability activism in the Global South

If interested, please submit:
  • Title and 150-word abstract for your paper 
  • 100-word bio for each author, touching on your qualifications regarding the proposed topic

 


CFP 2: Children, Adolescents, and the Media

Proposed Panel Chair: Chelsea Temple Jones (Brock U)

In this panel, we are keen to explore all media and technologies aimed at and/or used by or representing young disabled people (generally birth through late teens), as well as the contextual issues surrounding this selection and use. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
  • Disability discrimination, exclusion, and inequalities in media and technologies used by young people
  • Young disabled people’s media use in the Global South

If interested, please submit:
  • Title and 150-word abstract for your paper 
  • 100-word bio for each author, including your names, ranks, affiliations, and contact information

 


CFP 3: Communication & Technology, Digital inclusion and technology in the home

Proposed Panel Chair: Jenny Kennedy (RMIT U)

In this panel, we are keen to explore questions of digital inclusion, specifically focusing on technology in the home, disability, and inequality. We also encourage intersectional research across disability, gender, race, age, and geographies. 

Please note that submissions to CAT should focus on ICTs in the context of human communication: communicative interaction with or through technology.

 If interested, please submit:

 


CFP 4: Disability in Popular Media and Culture

Proposed Panel Chair: Beth Haller (Towson U)

In this panel, we are keen to consider disability and inequality within popular media and culture (including acts, artifacts, products, and processes). Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
  • Disability discrimination, exclusion, and inequalities in popular media and culture
  • Disability resistance in popular media and culture
  • Disability in popular media and culture in the Global South

If interested, please submit:
  • Title and 150-word abstract for your paper 
  • 100-word bio for each author, including your background and qualifications regarding the proposed topic

 


CFP 5: Visual Communication, Disability embodiment in the media

Proposed Panel Chair: Samira Rajabi (U of Colorado Boulder)

In this panel, we are keen to explore disability embodiment and identity in all visual forms: television, video, film, photography, art and design, print and digital media, space, and the built environment. We especially encourage submissions on disability embodiment in visualisations of sports and fitness. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
  • Inequalities across visual aspects of disability embodiment
  • Disparities in certain visual modes and research methods in relation to disability

If interested, please submit:

  


CFP 6: Health Communication in Popular Media

Proposed Panel Chair: Katie Ellis (Curtin U)

In this panel, we are keen to consider how disability and health is communicated, represented, and received within all forms of popular media and culture. 

 


ICA 2026 Theme: Communication and Inequalities in Context

The ICA 2026 conference theme invites critical reflection on the dynamics between communication and inequality and its tensions across different social, cultural and geographical backgrounds. As such, it is a call to engage with research exploring the deep divisions and existing interpersonal, institutional, and structural inequalities in our societies.

In a world shaped by the unequal distribution of political, economic, societal, cultural, and communication resources, considering the complex architecture of global inequalities remains a critical issue. Communication scholars have long recognized how structural divides shape all communication processes, from persistent barriers rooted in historical inequities to emerging forms of digital exclusion and fragmentation. Today, as disinformation, extremism, polarization, hate, oppression, and algorithmic discrimination pose global challenges, the specific contexts in which people encounter these phenomena—including political institutions, media systems, regulatory capacity, and social norms—may fundamentally shape their lived experiences. Thus, it becomes crucial to examine how and under what conditions these forces unevenly affect different communities and individuals across multiple domains of life and in various geographical and cultural settings. For example, communication barriers may impact disaster preparedness and response in vulnerable individuals; the increasing complexity of digital literacy requirements constitutes a significant threat to inclusion, and global internet governance and infrastructure decisions create and amplify disparities between and within different nations and communities.

Such inequalities and power dynamics are also expressed within/across communication research. From gender gaps in publications and language barriers for scholars from non-English-speaking countries to the invisibility of knowledge produced in the Global South and calls to de-Westernize communication research, several divides in communication in terms of the subject of study, the body of evidence, analytical frameworks, and academic cultures limits our ability to gain insights relevant to the current global social and political condition.



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Kuansong Victor ZHUANG
Assistant Professor in Disability Communication
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University

https://www.ksvictorzhuang.com/

We hope to form a disability communication and media interest group at the International Communication Association. Find out more at www.icadisability.com 

My latest publications:

Zhuang, Kuansong Victor, Meng Ee Wong, and Dan Goodley, eds. 2023. Not without us: Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Singapore. Singapore: Ethos. 

Winner, Best Non-Fiction Title, Singapore Book Awards 2024
Order here! http://bit.ly/notwithoutus2023
 
Tan, Wenqi, and Kuansong Victor Zhuang. 2025. "Election information accessibility for disabled people during Singapore’s 2025 general election." Disability & Society: 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2025.2558549 (Open Access) 

Zhuang, Kuansong Victor, Bella Choo, and Grace Lee-Khoo. "Towards a Critical Pedagogy for Inclusion: Disability-led Arts and its Radical Promise in Singapore. Critical Arts: 1-17 https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2023.2295529 (Open Access) 

Zhuang, Kuansong Victor, and Gerard Goggin. 2024. "New possibilities or problems for disability and inclusion? The case of AI and ADMs across work." Telematics and Informatics 92: 102156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2024.102156 (Open Access) 

Goggin, Gerard, and Kuansong Victor Zhuang. 2023. "Apps, mobilities, and migration in the Covid-19 pandemic: Covid technology and the control of migrant workers in Singapore." International Journal of Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231160802 (Open Access) 


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