Les membres de l’Association des jeunes chercheurs du CREM, Centre de recherche sur les médiations, organisent un colloque les 22 et 23 mai 2014 dont le but est d’exposer et de discuter des problèmes méthodologiques autour de la notion de public et de ses marges. Cette manifestation scientifique a pour but de rassembler des doctorants et jeunes docteurs issus de différentes disciplines des sciences humaines et sociales. Toute proposition de communication en langue française et anglaise qui abordera les problèmes méthodologiques liés au public (ou autre espace social de réception, ou non-réception, d’un objet ou d’un dispositif) sera examinée.

Scientific project presentation

Members of Young Researchers Association of CREM, Research Center on Mediations, organize a conference on May the 22^nd and 23^rd 2014 with the purpose of exposing and discussing methodological issues around the concept of the public and its margins. This scientific meeting aims at bringing together PhD students and young PhD holders from various disciplines of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The concept of the public is not obvious in all disciplines: extensively sought by the Cultural Institutions Studies and by the Communication and Media Science, the concept of the public is more marginal in Linguistics, Literature and Art, for example, but also comes with other notional terminologies (receiver, recipient, co- enunciator, participants, readers, viewers, listeners, etc.). This concept is also opposed to other similar ones in a given field of study, such as the notion of users in Media Analysis. However, despite these terminological divisions, cross-cutting issues arise about the topic "public" (the noun "public" is used here in its generic sense): representation and role of the public from production to reception, its participation and reflexivity, categorization of the public, etc. In the title of the conference, the assumption of plurality leads us to explore manifold conceptions, types and distinctions which cover the concept of the public and its disciplinary variations. The opposition "public"/ "refractory public" proposes to question the public and its margins.

The concept of the public is often essential for production or reception analysis on objects, facilities and conceptual patterns. The use of this concept requires to work on its construction and representations of it and on the elaboration of relevant analytical frameworks. Tackling the subject of the audiences' typologies requires methodological choices based on the conceptualization of the public, or suggested by a conception of audiences. Depending on the topic of the study, some of these methodological choices are as follows: terminology, measurement tools, composition of corpora, methods of inquiry. This proposal to discuss the concepts of public, audiences and refractory public in terms of methodology in an interdisciplinary conference aims at enabling young researchers to submit methodological fundamentals, analyses, results (even partial) and questions remaining on a topic where the concept of the public, its margins or its disciplinary variations are at stake. 

As an exploratory suggestion, here are some issues to be addressed:

• What are the role and the definition of the public in the selected theoretical field?
• Which representations do the concepts of public, refractory publicor "almost - public " convey?
• What is the relevance of the categorization of audiences met in social space?
• Which analytical categorizations are adopted by the researcher?
• What methods and tools are appropriate to make a survey on the different types of audiences, almost -public, refractory public?
• What investigations methods are to deploy to reach the digital "public user "?
• How to access non-contributory public, lurkers of digital media which are silent but not passive?
• What are the marks or traces of the public in artistic works?
• How to approach the expression of reflexivity of the public and the interpretive process in production and reception?
• How to build a corpus to study a specific audience?
• What methods to make observations about the users of mediation or institution’s facilities?
• Etc.

Main Topics

All proposals for communication that will cover methodological issues related to the public (or any kind of recipient or non recipient of a work, or any kind of users of mediation facilities) will be examined. Proposals will be grouped together under the following themes:

1. The recipient and the work or the media content
2. Users and mediation facilities
3. Public and cultural activities
4. Circulation of the representation of works and media content

Submission guidelines

Proposals are due

by November 29^th, 2013.

An abstract is to be sent in French or in English (maximum 5000 characters including spaces, Times New Roman, font size 12, single spaced, with a maximum of 8 references, 5 keywords, title, .doc format) to ajccrem@gmail.com.

• The title of your message will be « Proposition PNP: YOUR LAST NAME, YOUR FIRST NAME ».
• The message will be giving the following information: last name, first name, e-mail address, academical/professional position, university and laboratory of affiliation, name of your supervisor, title of your paper.
• In the attached document should only appear the title of the paper, abstract, references and five keywords (your last name, first name and laboratory name should not be included).
• In the abstract, you will expose the axis of your choice, the problematic, the theoretical field, the results obtained or expected, and the plan of action. Abstracts will be evaluated according to their relevance to the conference theme, and to their scientific and editorial quality by the Scientific Review Committee.

Schedule

Submission deadline: November 29^th, 2013

Notification of acceptance: December 20^th, 2014

Submitting papers for the proceedings: February 28^th, 2014

Evaluation of the papers: March 28^th, 2014

Conference: May 22^nd-23^d, 2014

Sending the final versions of the papers: June 27^th, 2014

Organization Committee

• Rosana CONTRERAS-GAMA
• Julien FALGAS
• Aurora FRAGONARA
• Agnès FELTEN
• Nathalie GERBER
• Pauline THEVENOT

Institutional Support

CREM, Research Center on Mediations (EA 3476)

Scientific Review Committee

Audrey Alvès (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Patrick Amey (Medi@lab, Université de Genève), Marta Boni (MHSC, Concordia University), Adeline Clerc (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Marion Colas-Blaise (IPSE, Université du Luxembourg ; CREM), Alexandre Coutant (OUN-ELLIAD, Université de Franche-Comté), Béatrice Damian-Gaillard (CRAPE, Université de Rennes 1), Lee Davidson (Museum & Heritage Studies, Victoria University of Wellington), Laurent Di Filippo (CREM, Université de Lorraine ; Skandinavistik, Universität Basel), Pascal Durand (CELIC, Université de Liège), Béatrice Fleury (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Sébastien Genvo (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Bertrand Gervais (Figura, Université du Québec à Montréal), Stéphane Goria (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Séverine Equoy Hutin (LLC-ELLIADD, Université de Franche-Comté) Jean Lagane (CNRS, LAMES (UMR 7305), Aix-Marseille Université), Alain Lavigne (PNCP, Université Laval), Michelle Lecolle (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Philippe Le Guern (CAPHI, Université de Nantes), Delphine Le Nozach (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Marc Lits (ORM, Université catholique de Louvain), Céline Ségur (CREM, Université de Lorraine), Christine Servais (LEMME, Université de Liège), Virginie Spies (Equipe Culture et Communication / Centre Norbert Elias (UMP 8562 - EHESS - UAPV - CNRS)), Jacques Walter (CREM, Université de Lorraine).