UDC 2025: Union for Democratic Communications 2025 University of Washington, Tacoma Tacoma, WA, United States, June 19-22, 2025

Conference Theme: The Future We Want: Resistance and Resolve

In a time of ongoing challenges including pulls towards authoritarianism, militarization, anti-intellectualism, and empire, the role of media and communications in helping provide solutions to these challenges have never been more urgent. The possibilities for leftist organizing and media scholarship are vital in the face of the range of current social and political crises. November 5, 2024 brought into sharp relief that the persistence of Trumpism and ineptitude of the Democratic Party is now undeniable.  We now face the  continuation and acceleration of an ever-growing range of problems: a persistent neoliberal vision, now joined by an ascendant paleoconservative drive linked, if contradictorily so, to tech-sector neomonarchist utopic ambitions. Alongside we face new and ongoing wars; algorithmic interventions into all facets of life; and a host of economic challenges. This condition is not unique to the United States: authoritarianism, militarization, and empire increasingly shape the politics of countries from Italy to India to Israel. In the past, we have found light through the cracks and hope in community, coalition, connection, and communication. The stakes have now been raised considerably.

Our 2025 conference will be held at the University of Washington at Tacoma, from Thursday, June 19th to Sunday, June 22nd. This is yet another conference that is part of a proud tradition dating back 40 years, during which time the Union for Democratic Communications has always been committed to challenging the steady march of neoliberal and fascistic politics by seeking to better embrace intersectional understandings, advocate for a more truly democratized education, and provide critical approaches to media platforms and technologies. As an organization in which so many of us have found strength and community, this conference offers us the opportunity to expand our connection to each other and our communities. Resistance and resolve will be key to challenging a coalescing neoliberal fascism, pushing back against rising authoritarianism, protecting individual freedoms, and creating the future we want.In spite of the challenges, recent years have also shown the possibility of a willingness to mobilize on a range of issues. In Germany, France, and Brazil, among other countries, we’ve seen increasing pushback and resistance to the divisiveness of the Right. This has been true even in the fraught context of the US. In the face of certain uncertainty, critical communication and media scholars and activists have a crucial role to play in meeting this moment. What solutions do we have to offer? What communities might we better connect with, and where are opportunities emerging which might allow us to better address the range of challenges we face?

The 2025 conference seeks to expand on these themes, pushing us to continue to fight for survival and transformation and to develop deeper theorizations of the currents we are observing globally.                                                   

We look to our scholarly, activist, and civic communities as ways to not only resist the pessimism that climate change, wars, genocides, neoliberalism and anti-democratic forces evoke, but to construct new spaces of resistance, resolve, and hope. As Rebecca Solnit notes, ‘hope’ helps us weather tumultuous times, reminding us that the future is ours to build. This year’s Union for Democratic Communication conference asks us to examine how we can address those challenges in the search for justice and paths forward, what solutions we have to offer, what communities we may engage with and might better connect with, to explore intellectual sites we may have missed, and where opportunities are emerging which might allow us to better address the range of challenges we face. 

Submissions may be individual presentations or panels, workshops, and roundtable discussions. We welcome work from scholars, activists, artists and media-makers that elaborate on these themes through a range of lenses and approaches, including: 

• Communication policy
• Political economy of communication
• Media production and resistance                                                                       
• Challenging racisms, patriarchies, and other oppressive power structures and formations
• Community engagement and organizing
• Activism, social justice, resistance, and media/tech activism
• Critical law and policy studies as a mechanism of change
• Community, labor, working class, activist and other histories                                        
• Critical Pedagogies
• Academic freedom, academic labor and values
• The crisis in journalism and possible solutions
• AI: Potentials and Challenges
• Climate change, the environment, and the media                                                            
• Media, art, and justice
• Justice and advocacy
• Advocacy through media, communication, and art                                                                                               

All abstracts - individual or for panels, workshops, etc - should be 300-500 words. All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.                                                                                              

Tips to Enhance Chance of Acceptance for Individual Submission:                                                                                  

• Don’t reveal your identity in the title or the abstract   
• Make sure your abstract relates to either the conference theme or the organization’s mission (and ideally, to both)
• Describe clearly and concisely (300-500 words) what your submission does.  
•  Make sure it is well-edited.                                                                                               

Tips to Enhance the Chance of Acceptance for a Panel/Workshop:                                                                                     

• Have one member of the panel or workshop submit an overarching panel title and abstract and a list of all participants invited.                                                                                                                     
• Each member should submit an individual abstract for their contribution and, if appropriate, a title for their contribution. They should also include just the panel title so they can be reviewed together.     
• Don’t reveal your identity or the identity of anyone on the panel in any of the submissions
• Make sure all abstracts relate to either the conference theme or the organization’s mission (and ideally, to both)
• In all abstracts, describe clearly and concisely (300-500 words) what your submission does.  
• Make sure it is well-edited.                                                                                           

Graduate students should submit full papers and abstracts to be considered for the Brian Murphy Student Paper Award. (http://www.democraticcommunications.org/.../brian-murphy.../)                                                                                            

 Notice of Acceptance: Applicants will be notified of their acceptance no later than March 15, 2025.

​​​​​​​All submissions undergo a double-blind review.