AANZCA 2025 Call for Papers and conference theme
The annual AANZCA conference will be hosted by the University of the Sunshine Coast in the last week of November 2025. AANZCA25 runs from Wednesday 26 to Friday 28 November 2025 inclusive, and the ECR/HDR pre-conference day is Tuesday 25 November. AANZCA25 will be partially ‘hybrid’ with keynotes and some program streams available for online participation from anywhere in the world.
We are delighted to announce that the theme for the AANZCA 2025 conference is ‘Turning the Tides’.
‘Turning the Tides’ asks us to reflect on how our scholarship engages with contemporary challenges, as well as opportunities, as the world navigates increasingly turbulent times.
As public trust continues to decline in many countries and cynicism bubbles up, do we have the methodologies and analytical techniques to capture and explain the multiple predicaments the world is facing? The current volatility and widespread unease are mirrored in declining civic participation across many parts of the world.
However, ‘Turning the Tides’ also evokes movement, change, and momentum; how can our research be a force of positive transformation across multiple fields? We are not just observers of change but active participants in shaping the narratives around us, and the narratives of those that we research. How can our work contribute to meaningful shifts in areas such as health, sustainability, social equity, and technology?
The use of communication scholarship as a way to positively change narratives around us, rather than being drawn into political polarisation and fragmentation, is another key area of reflection for this theme.
While we encourage submissions that engage with these broader dynamics, we also welcome more finely focused empirical studies. We particularly invite contributions addressing questions such as:
- How can our scholarship engage safely with communities to co-create knowledge and foster more inclusive research practices? How can we ensure the voices of those we wish to research are centred in our projects without further harming these communities?
- How can communication scholars and practitioners help societies build resilience against waves of misinformation and deception?
- How can our scholarship better map evolving AI landscapes, including the growing capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to ‘reason’ and parse vast literatures, albeit in legally dubious ways? How might we ensure more ethical use of LLMs and other AI tools in our research practice and teaching?
- How can communication research and practice contribute to building public trust and knowledge in health? What lessons can we learn from past and present health campaigns, media reporting, and/or social media to improve our understanding of health and illness in an era of misinformation?
- Are we sufficiently attuned to (and involved enough) in connections between media and mental health issues across journalism and cultural production such as contemporary TV and film, and gaming, for example).
- Is the media and communication field better positioned in 2025 to respond to the critiques that our work can lack meaningful engagement beyond academic institutions? Are more robust policy responses required, and what can our scholarship contribute in terms of shaping these responses?
- How can we use research to challenge hegemonic structures, safely co-create knowledge with communities, and engage with First Peoples and Indigenous knowledges, i.e. be more of a tool for truth-seeking?
- Do these waves of change suggest that we are at a critical juncture in our media and communications scholarship; in terms of either our choice of research topics or key methodologies, or both?
- Are there ways in which communication research practices can better challenge the structures from which cultural power and political legitimacy emerge and are legitimised? By reflecting on these practices, can we turn the tide toward more inclusive futures?
Although abstracts and panel proposal submissions that align with these themes are encouraged, all submission will be fully considered.
Please note that all submissions for AANZCA25 participation will be assessed only on submitted abstracts. Abstracts can be up to 500 words in length, excluding references (references are optional, for this year’s longer than usual ‘extended abstracts’ formats).
Attendees are welcome to submit multiple abstracts for peer review and consideration for the conference program, but each participant will be able to present only one paper as lead author as well as appear on one panel. In the interests of diversity and inclusion, participants can appear on additional papers as secondary authors but must not present these papers.
Please do consider submitting an abstract for AANZCA25. Submission opens on Friday 13 June and close on Friday 18 July 2025. In keeping with AANZCA’s values of diversity and inclusion, we particularly encourage students, LGBTQI+ scholars, scholars with disabilities, and scholars from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori and Pasifika backgrounds to submit their research for consideration.
AANZCA also welcomes scholars beyond our respective national boundaries, as well as those working in fields adjacent to communication studies, and practitioners working in communication and creative industries.
Key 2025 dates
Abstract submissions open: Friday 13 June 2025
Abstract submissions close: Friday 18 July 2025
Paper acceptance notifications by: Tuesday 12 September 2025
Early bird registrations open: Friday 19 September 2025
Early bird registrations close: Friday 17 October 2025
Full papers due (if seeking consideration for awards or post conference journal publication): 17 October 2025
Conference registration closes: Friday 7 November 2025
CONFERENCE DATES: Wednesday 26 to Friday 28 November 2025 (inclusive)
ECR/HDR pre-conference day: Tuesday 25 November 2025
For AANZCA25, we invite the submission of extended abstracts — up to 500 words long excluding references – accompanied by a 100 word ‘brief bio’ for each author.
For pre-constituted panel proposals of 3-4 speakers, submissions must include a panel title, abstract (300-500 words), the names and affiliations for each speaker, an abstract for each speaker (250 words) and a bio for each speaker (100 words).
Any paper presented at AANZCA25 can be submitted for consideration for post-conference Media International Australia (MIA) Special Issue (with the same ‘Turning the Tides’ theme), but only HDRs will be considered for Platform: Journal of Media and Communication. Submitted papers will need to be 6,000 – 7,000 words in length (including references). When abstracts are submitted, you’ll be able to indicate if you’d like your paper to be considered for any publications, awards and special issues.
Authors selected for CRP, MIA or Platform will be contacted following the conference and their full papers will then go through blind peer-review.
Please ‘watch this space’ for additional details soon about our exciting Keynote Speakers, as well as for calls for entries for the various AANZCA annual awards, as well as hotel and accommodation options, and other logistical information.