Conference

MeCCSA 2026 Conference, 2-4 September, University of Leicester

From mainstream to margins: Capturing developing practices, publics and persuasion

Submission deadline: 20 February 2026

The media have been operating against the backdrop of recent large-scale developments and within unsettled times. But with what consequence? In seeking to capture the moment, the conference will take stock of the present configuration of media developments and showcase our growing understanding of prevalent aspects of continuity and change found within the mainstream and margins of media systems. It seeks to cast light on the changing situation of media institutions, practitioners and practices (deprofessionalisation / precarity of established media workers among them) and the assumed agile creativity and fluidity characterising modern media work. It proposes to explore the evolving ‘publics’ (or audiences) to which the media shape, speak and listen at these times, observing both changing relationships and evidence of substantive responses and challenges. Recognised, likewise, is a need to re-examine our understandings of media persuasion, including the newfound forms these are assuming, from public messaging to disinformation and propaganda, and related concerns of cohesion, power and control.  All of which, this suggests, must be situated in context of increasingly interconnected ‘hybrid’ media systems which as entities are evolving amid prevalent forms of both global and domestic politics, economics and policy at this time.  

This conference invites research insights from the full range of the specialisms of MeCCSA colleagues.  

Themes for this conference include – but these will not be limited to:  

-Media pasts, presents and futures

-Media developments within, and outside, the nation

-Technologies and evolving cultural practices/content

-Cultural work, professional cultures and (the value of) human ‘creativity’

-Media presence and evolution in the mainstream and margins

-Publics / audiences and everyday interactions

-Representations and issues, crises and conflicts

-Media hybridity and the interconnectedness of media forms and flows

-Cultural policy, regulation and change

-Mediated interactions between institutions, groups and individuals

Submission

Individual Papers: Please submit abstracts for individual papers (max 250 words) with presentation title, up to 5 key words, your name, affiliation, and email address

Practice-as-research: We actively support the presentation of practice-as-research and have a flexible approach to practice-based papers and presentations. This includes opportunities to present papers, screenings, etc, in the same session or as part of a separate strand.

Panels:  Panel proposals should include a short description and rationale (200 words) together with abstracts for each of the 3-4 papers comprising the panel (150-200 words each including details of the contributor/s), and the name and contact details of the panel proposer with up to 5 key words. The panel proposer should integrate the separate abstracts to comprise a single proposal

We particularly welcome submissions from early career and postgraduate researchers.

Use the following link for all submissions: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=meccsa2026

All questions about submissions should be emailed to: meccsa2026@le.ac.uk