ICCA Call for 2026 ICA Papers and Ad-hoc Reviewers

The International Chinese Communication Association (ICCA), a long-time affiliate of the International Communication Association (ICA), invites submissions for 76th ICA annual conference to be held June 4-8, 2026, in Cape Town, South Africa.

ICCA will hold one competitive research session. We invite you to submit your original, full research papers. We especially welcome submissions related to this year’s conference theme: Communication and Inequalities in Context. Each qualified submission will be reviewed by at least two reviewers.

Paper will be evaluated on:

o Originality and importance of topic

o Adequacy of literature review

o Clarity and appropriateness of methods

o Soundness of analysis

o Validity and strength of conclusion and discussion

o Clarity and organization of writing

o Relevance to the field of Chinese communication

ICCA will present a top faculty paper award and a top student paper award based on the results of the reviews. Papers submitted with both faculty and student authors will be considered faculty papers and are not eligible for student paper competitions.

Eligibility You do not need to be an ICCA member to submit a paper to the competition. However, if your paper is accepted for presentation, you will need to register for the ICA conference and become an ICCA member to be part of the program. If you win a top faculty paper or a top student paper, you will be awarded $200 USD per paper, the e-certificate and one-year free ICCA membership. For the ICCA membership, visit https://www.icca1.com/membership.

Paper Preparation and Submission Submissions should be in English. Two separate files are required for the submission: 1) title page, and 2) full manuscript. The title page must include the following information:

o Paper title

o An abstract (no more than 150 words)

o 5-8 keywords

o All authors’ names, email addresses, and affiliations (listed in the order as they would appear in the program)

o Please indicate the corresponding author and include her/his e-mail address and phone number if different from the listed first author

o Please indicate if any of the authors are students

o Author(s) needs to confirm that the submission has not been published in scholarly journals, presented at previous ICA or other conferences, or submitted to other ICA divisions for this year’s competition (After notification of the result, if your paper is not accepted, you may consider resubmitting it to other ICA divisions). In addition, papers should not be under review for other conferences.

The full manuscript must meet the following requirements:

o Each paper should be no more than 25 pages in length, excluding references, tables and figures

o Each paper should be double-spaced, using 12-point Times New Roman font, and have 1-inch margins

o Author’s identification information should be removed from the manuscript to ensure blind review.

Special note: submissions not meeting the above criteria will not be considered for review and will automatically be disqualified from the competition. Deadline

Please send your completed papers to Dr. Céline Song (yunyasong@ust.hk) and Dr. Hsuan-Ting Chen (htchen@cuhk.edu.hk ) by 12:00 Noon EDT, October 20th, 2025. Authors will be notified whether their papers have been accepted by October 30th. FYI, the ICA submission deadline is November 3rd 12:00 noon (EDT), so you may consider resubmitting your paper to an ICA division if it is not accepted by ICCA. Please direct your inquiries, if any, to Dr. Song or Dr. Chen by email.

Call for Reviewers

For those who do not plan to submit a paper to the ICCA session this year, please consider serving as an ad-hoc reviewer for ICCA. Please send us emails, indicating your preferred methodology and areas of expertise before October 20. Your service as an ICCA reviewer is greatly appreciated, and your name will be acknowledged as a reviewer in the ICCA newsletters.

Contact Information

Céline Yunya Song (宋韻雅)

Ph.D. ICCA Vice President/Research Chair Professor & Associate Head, Division of Emerging Interdisciplinary Areas, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Director, Media Intelligence Research Center, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Email: yunyasong@ust.hk

Hsuan-Ting Chen, Ph.D.

ICCA-ICA Co-Chair, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Email: htchen@cuhk.edu.hk