Conferences

The Mobile Communication Division focuses on how mobile devices, platforms, and networked infrastructures shape the movement of human bodies, social life, psychology, and culture. Scholarship conducted in the division is at the intersection of mobility, technology, social structure, and culture in communication. We include a wide array of perspectives and approaches in mobile communication studies through the angles of mobility and mobile communication, ranging from historical approaches to studies on future media innovations, from ethnographic methods to quantitative empirical approaches, and from critical and cultural studies to media effects research. Regardless of theoretical and methodological traditions, submissions for the division must focus on state-of-the-art theories and methodologies on the social consequences and contexts of mobile communication.

Submissions can include themes such as:

The social and cultural dimensions of mobile communication:
Including the ubiquitous presence of mobile communication in everyday life; the embeddedness of mobile communication within social networks; the mutual shaping of mobile technology and social structures; cultural differences in mobile communication; mobile communication in the Global South; mobile communication within marginalized groups; policy, power, and political perspectives on mobile communication.
Spatial and geographic perspectives:
Mobile communication in urban, suburban, and rural spaces; local uses and experiences of mobile media and communication.
Histories and futures of mobile communication:
Histories of mobile media; AI in mobile communication; emergence of new uses, experiences, negotiation of norms, and symbolic representation by producers and users.
Applied domains and uses:
Mobile learning and education, mobile health, mobile journalism and civic engagement; Mobile gaming; Persuasion through mobile media in various domains; disconnection from mobile media and communication.

This list is far from exhaustive and is provided only as an indication of the scope of inquiry welcomed by the Division. We encourage the submission of papers and proposals using a wide array of theoretical and methodological approaches.

In line with the ICA 2026 Conference Theme, Communication and Inequalities in Context, the Division especially welcomes submissions that focus on the diverse and unequal contexts of mobile communication and mobile media use.

Doctoral Consortium

Owing to the growing body of scholarship focused on mobile communication, the Interest Group has served as co-sponsor to the Doctoral Consortium run by the Communication and Technology Division at ICA.

The call for the doctoral consortium is typically released at the beginning of each year.

Previous conferences: