CFP: ICA Panel on LGBTQ+ Discourse and Rhetoric

Hello from Nanditha Narayanamoorthy and Yvonne Eadon, postdoctoral research scholars from the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) at UNC Chapel Hill. We are looking to convene a 6-paper panel for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer Studies Interest Group at the International Communication Association (ICA) 2023 in Toronto. 

The panel seeks to bring together papers that examine online discourses and rhetoric around LGBTQ+ communities on social media platforms from a variety of disciplines, methodologies, and cultural contexts. We invite papers that not only investigate the ways in which virtual queer communities converge and communicate online in the creation of personal and collective identities, but also how they are broadly represented on platforms through the rhetoric of violence, surveillance, conspiracy theories, and far-right nationalism. Emphasizing questions of power, discursive world-building, and social inequalities in relation to digital LGBTQIA+ communities, this panel seeks to foster conversation among scholars around the world by centering queer and trans communities, interrogating and broadening the extant narratives around online discourse on queer and trans experiences. We are particularly interested in papers that bring intersectional perspectives to the discursive study of sex, sexuality, gender, and intimacy using de/anti/postcolonial, and queer/trans/non-binary frameworks. Papers that take an intersectional and comparative approach from the Global North and South are particularly welcome. Submissions are welcome, but not limited to:

• queer world-building through gaming, alternate reality games (ARGs), fan fiction, or other means 

• digital queer resistance, activism, and solidarity

• virtual queer communities on social media platforms (TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr)

• Far-right communities formed around anti-LGBTQIA+ discourses (e.g., Libs of TikTok) 

• rhetoric of hate and cultures of harm against LGBTQIA+ groups

• conspiracy theories by and about queer communities

• discourse on privacy and surveillance for LGBTQIA+ communities

• intra- and inter-community conflicts

• gendered approaches to the recent public health crisis

Submissions can be sent to nanditha@unc.edu by October 20, 2022. Please include a separate 250-word abstract and author biography. If you know others who might be interested, please share!