ICSI CONFERENCE 2025
Overcoming differences
24-26 September
ECREA’s (European Communication Research and Education Association) section for Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction (ICSI) is delighted to announce that the 8th bi-annual meeting of the ICSI section of ECREA will take place in University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain at 24.-26.9.2025.
Overcoming differences celebrates the spectrum of research themes, metatheories, methods and paradigms that have created a fruitful soil for understanding mutual interaction in interpersonal encounters. Overcoming differences means accepting differences, respecting them and seeing the huge possibilities and synergies that we have as interpersonal, interaction and communication scholars. ICSI2025 conference creates a platform for being together and discussing the nuances and potential that our discipline provides. During the conference a Young Scholar’s workshop will also take place.
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline:
June 16th (midnight CET).
Acceptance announcement:
During June
Registration opens:
June 2nd
Registration closes:
August 31st
| CONFERENCE FEES | PRICE |
| Early-bird fee | 200 euros |
| Regular fee | 250 euros |
| Student fee (PhD candidates) | 150 euros |
| Student fee for the workshop | 50 euros |
The registration fee includes conference lunches and dinner, coffee breaks, and all the essentials for a memorable and enjoyable experience.
As a field of research and education, communication studies was born at the crossroads of many disciplines. These encounters were needed to identify a unique subject to study, that is, communication processes. The same crossroad metaphor is true in the research area of interpersonal communication and social interaction too. The history becomes visible in the spectrum of research themes, metatheories, methods and paradigms. Sometimes these different points of view have created great divisions and heated debates. Sometimes different approaches have lived in quiet coexistence. This year, ICSI Section’s regional conference celebrates these differences that have created a fruitful soil for understanding the most important research subject: our mutual interaction in interpersonal encounters. Overcoming differences does not mean becoming similar but rather accepting differences, respecting them and seeing the huge possibilities and synergies that we have as interpersonal, interaction and communication scholars.
As differences always exist, they emerge and are talked into being when encountering the other. Each of the different sub-disciplines of interpersonal communication and social interaction has their own viewpoint and the capacity to provide an important contribution to the theme. This contribution may take place, for example, in the arenas of politics, health care, and intercultural encounters, in face-to-face, mediated, and digitalized environments, interpersonally and in interaction with AI.
The ICSI Conference Overcoming differences 2025 provides an opportunity to share our ideas, theories and research about interpersonal communication and social interaction across our different specializations. It creates a platform for being together and discussing the nuances and potential synergies that our discipline provides. Connecting our insights from different approaches will inform our own current research, provide creative ideas for future research, and help theory development.
We call for paper and panel proposals from any communication or communication-related discipline that addresses the section's themes. Topics may include but are not limited to:
• Interpersonal relationships
• Group and team communication
• Communicative competence and interpersonal skills
• Linguistic choices and their effects in interaction
• Listening
• Public speaking, rhetoric, argumentation, and persuasion
• Mediated interaction and digital interpersonal communication
• Interaction with conversational human agents, personal assistants and chatbots
• Ethnography of speaking.
All kinds of contexts are welcome, such as family, work, instructional, political, health. Proposals for different methodological considerations - qualitative, quantitative, mixed, meta-analysis, textual, etc. - are highly encouraged. Please, submit your 500-word abstract by June 16th (Midnight CET) at the latest. Kindly send it to the e-mail address ICSI2025@tuni.fi using the subject “Conference submission.”
We invite young scholars to join us from the different sub-disciplines of interpersonal communication and social interaction, working within the section’s general themes. As part of our conference program, we will provide a workshop for young scholars (doctoral students and early-career researchers). The workshop provides a great opportunity to receive feedback from senior mentors on the paper you submit, and to network with your international colleagues.
Please submit your 500-word proposal by May 30th (Midnight CET) at the latest. Kindly send it to the e-mail address ICSI2025@tuni.fi using the subject “Yecrea workshop submission.” In the workshop, you can present either A) an article manuscript you are currently working on, B) an extended abstract of your doctoral dissertation, or C) a detailed research plan/dissertation proposal. During the workshop, participants and senior faculty members will discuss the papers submitted by the participants. Your participation will include submitting a paper (1300–1500 words) by August 31, giving a short (5–10 minutes) presentation of your work, and actively engaging in the workshop discussions. You will receive detailed instructions once accepted.
Jeffrey Hall is a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law. His book, Relating Through Technology (Cambridge University Press), was the recipient of several awards and was featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN. His upcoming book, The Social Biome (Yale University Press), with Andy Merolla, explores the complex ways in which our social health and well-being are intertwined. Dr. Hall has written several articles on building friendships and forming meaningful connections for the Wall Street Journal. He is the former Chair of the Human Communication and Technology Division of the National Communication Association, and the current Chair of the Interpersonal Communication Division at the International Communication Association. He is the director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas and received his PhD from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California.
Malgorzata Lahti, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in Communication at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. With an academic background in linguistics, intercultural communication, and communication studies, she brings an interdisciplinary approach to both her teaching and research. Lahti’s work is grounded in a constitutive view of communication, and her research explores how organizational diversity is created and negotiated through everyday interaction. She adopts social constructionist and ethnomethodological frameworks to understand how identity categories are mobilized in text and talk, and how this relates to processes such as knowledge construction, professional identity negotiation, or the formation of a shared small culture. Currently, she investigates interprofessional collaboration in healthcare and has recently contributed to the development of a dialogical method for exploring identity construction through similarity and difference talk. Alongside her research, Lahti has extensive experience in designing and teaching courses on communication and intercultural communication. She is also actively engaged in pedagogical development and has co-edited volumes on teaching communication and interculturality in higher education. She is a member of the European Masters in Intercultural Communication teaching and research network and serves on the board of the Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication.
24 SEPTEMBER
25 SEPTEMBER
26 SEPTEMBER
ORGANIZED BY
(+34) 948 425600