8th International Conference on Social Representations

Social Representations: Media and Society

 

The International Conferences on Social Representations (ICSR) have been established as important international events and forums for the study of social representations focusing on theoretical, methodological and applied aspects. These aspects are relevant both for the scientific community and for society.

These International Conferences take place every two years. Hundreds of researchers, professors, students, institutions, various organizations as well as general public (social workers, policy makers, professionals in various fields related to societal issues and communication) from all five continents (and in particular from Europe, Canada and Latin-American countries) are attracted to take part in order to discuss, integrate as well as create new knowledge.

The capacity to attract a progressively larger number of scholars has been demonstrated by the participation in the previous seven conferences: from almost hundred participants registered in the First International Conference on Social Representations held in 1992 in Ravello (Italy) to the last conference in 2004 in Guadalajara Mexico with over 1200 participants.

The multilingual character (three official languages: English, French, Spanish) and multicultural nature of these scientific events are reflected by the alternation in the choice of Continents as the conference locations.

 

The previous seven conferences have been respectively organized at:

 

·  I      ICSR: 1992 Ravello, ITALY (EUROPE)

·  II     ICSR: 1994 Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL (LATIN-AMERICA)

·  III    ICSR: 1996 Aix-en-Provence, FRANCE (EUROPE)

·  IV     ICSR: 1998 Mexico City, MEXICO (LATIN-AMERICA)

·  V      ICSR: 2000 Montreal, CANADA (NORTH-AMERICA)

·  VI     ICSR: 2002 Stirling, SCOTLAND, U.K. (EUROPE)

·  VII    ICSR: 2004 Guadalajara, MEXICO (LATIN-AMERICA)

The organisation of the 8^th international conference in Italy, and in particular at Rome La Sapienza University represents a very special occasion for expressing and improving the internationalisation strategies of the Atheneum and at the same time it is an event of large cultural relevance for the city of Rome.

The prestige of La Sapienza University with regard to this event has been corroborated by the fact that – rather than proposing itself as candidate – it has been designated as event organiser, as the coordinating Institution of the  So.Re.Com. Thematic Network of excellence. Moreover, the proven coordinating capacities of the European Ph.D. on Social Representations and Communication and the numerous related EU projects aimed at the young research trainees (Marie Curie Multipartner Organisation, International Summer Schools, the Internationalisation program approved by the Italian Ministry for University and Scientific Research, Italian-French Vinci program, etc.) have all contributed to this success.

The conference in itself represents a scientific event of the planned activities of the So.Re.Com. THEmatic NETwork and it will not be only an occasion of encounter of the various partners in the projects, but also an opportunity for presenting and disseminating in the wider scientific community the multimedia scientific products (such as the transformation of the web site of the European Ph.D. into a Portal for the entire scientific domain) realised in the first and half year of the programme.