108th Annual Eastern Communication Association (ECA) Convention
Freedom To … Freedom From …
Boston, MA
The Omni Parker House
March 29 - April 2, 2017
Submission Deadline: October 15, 2016
The Health Communication Interest Group invites submissions of papers, panels, short courses, and other innovative activities for the 108th Annual ECA Convention. The Health Communication Interest Group studies the processes, practices, and policies related to human and mediated communication in health care and health promotion. Research presented within this division evolves from a wide range of theories and methodological approaches that often address the ways individuals seek, interpret, and respond to health information. The interest group promotes scholarship that examines communication in health education and promotion, health care consumer-provider relationships, caregiving, health care organizations, health policy, health campaigns and interventions, communication and aging, lifespan development, risk communication, and e-health applications. The interest group welcomes submissions from scholars at all stages in their academic career, especially those interested in exploring and applying new theoretical perspectives to health communication.
No city in the United States is associated more with the tensions inherent in the concept of <freedom> than Boston, the site of our 2017 convention. Although the “Freedom Trail” that passes only twenty feet from the door of our convention hotel tells a story that Boston – and the United States – seeks simple <freedom>, its two endpoints show that <freedom> is no simple thing. The Massachusetts State House on the southern end negotiates daily the tension between governmental regulation and individual liberties. The USS Constitution on the northern end embodies the nation’s history desire for freedom from foreign aggression through its freedom to use military force. The Boston Common was used as a grazing ground, where there was freedom from livestock fees, but also freedom to enact the tragedy of the commons. Boston was home to the first Liberty Tree, an elm near Boston Common that was a site where everyday people sought freedom from the Stamp Act in 1765 and where British soldiers enacted their freedom to make this tree an object of ridicule and a site of punishment. Samuel Adams preached revolutionary freedom from British taxes, even while his cousin John Adams argued that even British soldiers have the freedom to demand a fair trial. Boston’s Justice William Cushing ruled in 1781, that “all men are born free and equal” to demand that Bostonians of African descent be released from slavery, even as slaveholders and legislators sustained laws that allowed the freedom to hold slaves until the end of the Civil War. Throughout the Civil War, the first Red Scare of the 1920s, the busing and desegregation struggles of the 1970s and 80s, and to today in dozens of other examples, Boston has been a place where <freedom> has been a contested ground.
Our presence in Boston invites us to consider how the tensions in <freedom> are also present in our discipline. What does communication give us the <freedom> to do? What does it give us <freedom> from? What are the uses and abuses of free communication? When have others used their freedom to communicate to prevent freedom from other forces? And, when have we used the freedom to communicate to gain freedom from these forces? Submissions that explore these kinds of questions are particularly welcome.
Submission of Completed Papers
Individual submissions of complete papers should not have been presented previously at another conference, (with the exception of a student-only conference), be accepted for publication, or have been published.
Submission of complete papers should include the following elements:
Submission of Program/Panel Proposals
Program/panel proposals should focus on some unifying theme or concept relevant to research, theory, or instruction in the area of health communication and typically include 3-5 presenters. We encourage you to present your work as a roundtable discussion, an interactive session (engaging participants and attendees), a debate, a workshop session, a performance, or using other innovative formats. Programs co-sponsored with other Interest Groups are welcome.
Submission of program/panel proposals should include the following elements:
**Statement of Professional Responsibility
The following statement MUST be included with every submission of a paper or panel in order for it to be eligible for review:
In submitting the attached paper or proposal, I/We recognize that this submission is considered a professional responsibility. I/We agree to present this panel or paper if it is accepted and programmed. I/We further recognize that all who attend and present at ECA’s annual meeting must register and pay required fees.
Please send your submissions and/or inquiries to the Health Communication Interest Group Chair, Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed, at <ecahealthcom2017@gmail.com>. All submissions should be submitted as either a .doc/.docx, .odt, or .pdf file. Remember, the deadline for submissions is 11:59 PDT October 15, 2016.
NOTE: Please note that acceptance of a paper or panel proposal obligates authors to attend the conference and present the paper. For program/panel presentation, the organizer is expected to take responsibility for communication with the Interest Chair, alert her to any changes or problems and ensure that panelists register for the conference and deliver their papers/presentations.
For additional pertinent information regarding the conference, please visit: http://www.ecasite.org/aws/ECA/pt/sp/p_Home_Page
Thanks so much and I look forward to receiving your proposals to help us enact <Freedom>!
Sincerely,
Rukhsana Ahmed, Ph.D.
Chair and 2017 Program Planner
Health Communication Interest Group
Eastern Communication Association