Media Meet 2026 invites paper submissions aligned with our curated panels under the theme “Indigenous Communication Systems: Meaning-Making in a Digital World.” Following a rigorous selection of panel proposals that resonate with this year’s focus, we now welcome scholars, researchers, practitioners, and students to contribute original papers that engage with these conversations. We encourage submissions that critically explore indigenous knowledge frameworks, cultural narratives, community media practices, and their evolving presence within digital spaces. Join us in deepening the dialogue and advancing meaningful scholarship at the intersection of tradition and technology.
Media Meet 2026 invites paper submissions aligned with our curated panels under the theme “Indigenous Communication Systems: Meaning-Making in a Digital World.” Following a rigorous selection of panel proposals that resonate with this year’s focus, we now welcome scholars, researchers, practitioners, and students to contribute original papers that engage with these conversations. We encourage submissions that critically explore indigenous knowledge frameworks, cultural narratives, community media practices, and their evolving presence within digital spaces. Join us in deepening the dialogue and advancing meaningful scholarship at the intersection of tradition and technology.
Abstract Submission Guidelines
Authors are invited to submit abstracts aligned with the selected panels under the theme “Indigenous Communication Systems: Meaning-Making in a Digital World.”
Abstracts must be between 250–300 words.
Submissions should clearly state the title, research objective, methodology, key arguments/findings, and relevance to the selected panel.
Include 3–5 keywords.
Provide the author’s name, institutional affiliation, designation, and contact details in a separate document (to ensure blind review, if applicable).
Abstracts must be submitted in .doc/.docx format, Times New Roman, 12-point font, single spacing.
The file must be named the same as the paper's title.
Clearly mention the panel name under which the submission is being made.
Submissions should be original and not under consideration elsewhere.
Selected authors will be notified via email and will be required to submit the full paper by the stipulated deadline.
Please email your abstracts to mediameet@christuniversity.in.
For any queries related to submissions or the conference, you may write to the same email address.
Conference Panels
P01 - From Ancestral Commons to Digital Markets: Indigenous Knowledge, IP Law, and the Politics of Circulation
P01 - From Ancestral Commons to Digital Markets: Indigenous Knowledge, IP Law, and the Politics of Circulation
Chair: Dr Shampa I Dev, Professor, Christ University, Bengaluru
Co-chairs: Dr Avishek Chakraborty, Associate Professor, Christ University, Bengaluru,
Dr Embassy Lawbei, Assistant Professor, Christ University BGR Campus, Bengaluru
This panel examines how Indigenous knowledge, particularly folk music, oral literature, and symbolic arts, circulates within contemporary digital systems. It foregrounds definitional challenges in the Indian context, where constitutional frameworks inadequately recognise Indigenous communities under international regimes. Analysing tensions between communal cultural ownership and individual-centred intellectual property law, the panel traces production, digital distribution, and consumption to identify legal and ethical vulnerabilities and explore decolonising media and legal frameworks for safeguarding ancestral cultural heritage.
Research Questions:
Why does standard Intellectual Property Law fail to protect Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs)?
How are indigenous textiles and motifs borrowed by global brands without consent or compensation, and what cultural power structures enable this practice?
Who should own and control digital recordings of sacred rituals in the context of the right to be forgotten versus the duty to preserve?
What legal and ethical grey areas emerge when modern DJs use traditional indigenous chants in electronic music?
How can the shift from extracting data move toward empowering communities to distribute their own stories on their own terms?
P02 - Reimagining Meaning-Making and Community Learning: Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Media, Technology, Organisational, and Policy Contexts
P02 - Reimagining Meaning-Making and Community Learning: Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Media, Technology, Organisational, and Policy Contexts
Chair: Dr Lajwanti M Jethwani, Department of Psychology, Education and Social Work, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore
Co-chair: Dr Prakasha G S, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Education and Social Work, CHRIST(Deemed to be University), Bangalore
This panel explores Indigenous communication systems, including Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), as alternative frameworks for storytelling, leadership, learning, and meaning-making across media, organisational, cultural, and technological contexts. Grounded in oral traditions, symbols, ecological knowledge, and community-based decision-making, it examines how Indigenous knowledge engages with digital technologies and policy structures to inform ethical, inclusive, and culturally grounded practices in education, governance, media production, and technology design.
Research Questions:
How can Indigenous Knowledge Systems contribute to new models of teaching, learning, and knowledge transmission across disciplines?
In what ways can digital technologies such as AI, immersive media, and digital archives support the preservation and circulation of Indigenous knowledge while respecting cultural rights and ethics?
How do global media platforms, political economies, and technological infrastructures interact with local Indigenous knowledge to shape identity and community leadership?
What ethical responsibilities do media practitioners, educators, technologists, and policymakers hold when working with Indigenous knowledge systems?
How can Indigenous communication practices inform fields such as communication theory, organisational studies, psychology, cultural studies, environmental studies, and human–computer interaction?
P03 - Storytelling as Inclusive Pedagogy: Narrative Learning across Disciplines, Technologies, and Communities
P03 - Storytelling as Inclusive Pedagogy: Narrative Learning across Disciplines, Technologies, and Communities
Chair: Dr Kiran Mamgain, Associate Professor, Christ University, Bengaluru
Co-chairs: Dr Vikas Kumar Sharma, Associate Professor, Sharda University, New Delhi,
Dr Meenu Sharma, Associate Professor, Chitkara University, Punjab,
Dr Lajwanti, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bengaluru
This panel examines storytelling as an inclusive pedagogical strategy integrating cognitive, affective, and cultural learning across disciplines. Aligned with student-centred, technology-enhanced education, it shows how narrative practices foster engagement, ethical reasoning, and conceptual understanding across the humanities, STEM, health, business, and professional training. Using cross-disciplinary examples and practical tools, it highlights effective design, assessment, and adaptation of storytelling for in-person, hybrid, and digital learning environments.
Research Questions:
Which learning mechanisms, such as narrative transportation or embodiment, explain the effectiveness of storytelling across disciplines?
How does narrative pedagogy influence student persistence, academic performance, and sense of belonging across in-person, hybrid, and online modalities?
What mixed-methods approaches can validly assess narrative quality, learner engagement, and knowledge transfer at course and programme levels?
How can instructors sequence story-based learning activities to support threshold concepts and manage cognitive load?
Which technologies, including AI, AR/VR, podcasts, and digital storytelling tools, enhance accessibility and authorship without reinforcing bias?
P04 - Environmental Communication and Indigenous Media: Learning from Land and Place-Based Knowledge
P04 - Environmental Communication and Indigenous Media: Learning from Land and Place-Based Knowledge
This panel focuses on environmental communication through Indigenous media and place-based knowledge systems. It examines how land-centred storytelling, seasonal rhythms, and ecological practices inform climate communication, sustainability initiatives, disaster response, and environmental governance. Highlighting Indigenous approaches to human–nature relationships and ethical representation, the panel foregrounds community control over environmental narratives and the role of Indigenous media in developing culturally accountable, locally grounded, and ecologically sensitive communication strategies.
Research Questions:
How do land-based storytelling and seasonal knowledge shape Indigenous approaches to climate and environmental communication?
In what ways can Indigenous media practices inform sustainability communication and disaster-response messaging?
How do Indigenous understandings of human–nature relationships challenge dominant environmental communication frameworks?
What ethical principles govern Indigenous control over environmental narratives in media and policy contexts?
How can place-based Indigenous knowledge contribute to more locally grounded and culturally accountable environmental governance in the context of climate change?
P05 - Indigenous Cinematic Storyworlds: Film, Memory, and Digital Circulation
P05 - Indigenous Cinematic Storyworlds: Film, Memory, and Digital Circulation
This panel examines Indigenous cinema in India as a communicative and cultural practice shaped by memory, land, and community storytelling. Focusing on feature films, documentaries, and hybrid digital cinema, it explores how Indigenous narratives travel across festivals, streaming platforms, and digital archives. The panel analyses questions of authorship, visual sovereignty, spectatorship, and circulation, asking how film can preserve Indigenous worldviews while negotiating platform economies, global visibility, and ethical representation in Indigital contexts.
Research Questions:
How do Indigenous filmmakers use cinematic form to translate oral memory and place-based knowledge?
What ethical challenges arise when Indigenous films circulate on global festivals and streaming platforms?
How does digital distribution reshape authorship, ownership, and visual sovereignty in Indigenous cinema?
In what ways do Indigenous films resist or rework dominant narrative and aesthetic conventions?
How can film function as an archive of Indigenous knowledge without flattening cultural specificity?
P06 - Disability, Indigeneity, and Media: Embodied Knowledge in Indigital Worlds
P06 - Disability, Indigeneity, and Media: Embodied Knowledge in Indigital Worlds
This panel explores disability through Indigenous frameworks that understand embodiment, sound, rhythm, care, and community as central to communication and meaning-making. Moving beyond deficit-based models, it examines how disabled Indigenous experiences are expressed through music, media platforms, performance, and digital storytelling. The panel considers how Indigital media can enable alternative sensory epistemologies while also raising concerns around visibility, tokenism, accessibility, and ethical representation in contemporary media cultures.
Research Questions:
How do Indigenous knowledge systems reframe disability beyond biomedical and deficit models?
In what ways do sound, rhythm, and performance enable alternative sensory communication for disabled communities?
How do digital platforms shape the visibility and representation of disabled Indigenous voices?
What ethical issues arise in mediating disability narratives through media and digital technologies?
How can Indigenous approaches inform inclusive media design and accessibility practices?
P07 - Performing Knowledge: Indigenous Arts, Embodiment, and Mediated Presence
P07 - Performing Knowledge: Indigenous Arts, Embodiment, and Mediated Presence
This panel focuses on Indigenous performing arts: dance, theatre, ritual performance, and music, as living communication systems grounded in embodiment, collectivity, and intergenerational memory. It examines how these practices are transformed when performed, recorded, streamed, or archived through digital media. The panel explores tensions between liveness and mediation, ritual and spectacle, preservation and commodification, asking how performing arts sustain Indigenous knowledge while navigating Indigital platforms and global cultural circuits.
Research Questions:
How do Indigenous performing arts function as systems of knowledge and communication?
What changes occur when live Indigenous performances are digitised or streamed?
How do embodiment and affect operate differently in mediated versus live performance contexts?
What ethical challenges arise in recording, archiving, or commercialising Indigenous performances?
How can digital media support the continuity of Indigenous performing arts without cultural extraction?
P08 - Attention and Affect as Collective Practice: Indigenous Psychologies, Media Rituals, and Digital Wellbeing
P08 - Attention and Affect as Collective Practice: Indigenous Psychologies, Media Rituals, and Digital Wellbeing
This panel rethinks attention and emotion through Indigenous psychological and cultural frameworks that understand focus and feeling as collective, relational, and restorative practices. Moving beyond extractive attention economies and individualised affect, it examines how rituals, rhythm, performance, mourning, and communal listening function as media practices shaping shared presence and wellbeing. Bringing media psychology, affect theory, Indigenous studies, and ethical digital design into dialogue, the panel explores culturally grounded alternatives for healthier digital engagement.
Research Questions:
How do Indigenous frameworks conceptualise attention and emotion as collective, relational processes?
How do rituals and communal practices cultivate sustained attention and shared affect?
How do digital platforms reshape Indigenous practices of collective focus and feeling?
What roles do attention and affect play in Indigenous belonging, memory, and resistance?
How can Indigenous models inform ethical media psychology and digital wellbeing design?
P09 - Redefining Indigenous Value in Digital Economies: Ethics, Culture, and Sustainability
P09 - Redefining Indigenous Value in Digital Economies: Ethics, Culture, and Sustainability
This panel examines how Indigenous value systems can inform management and organisational practice in digital economies beyond profit-driven models. Drawing on principles of community responsibility, cultural continuity, and environmental stewardship, it explores applications in CSR, ESG frameworks, ethical branding, and sustainability communication. Positioned within management studies, the panel invites analyses of how media-driven organisations can integrate relational ethics, long-term accountability, and social value into governance, decision-making, and strategic communication.
Research Questions:
How can Indigenous value systems inform management approaches to defining value beyond profit in digital economies?
In what ways can Indigenous principles of community responsibility and environmental stewardship be integrated into CSR and ESG frameworks
How do media-driven organisations and cultural industries translate ethical and sustainability values into branding and strategic communication?
What governance and decision-making models enable organisations to embed relational ethics and long-term accountability in digital markets?
How can management practices balance economic performance with cultural sustainability and social value in digitally networked business environments?
P10 - Indigenous Governance, Communication, and Decision-Making in Digital and Algorithmic Systems
P10 - Indigenous Governance, Communication, and Decision-Making in Digital and Algorithmic Systems
This panel examines Indigenous models of governance as communicative, relational, and consensus-based processes and their relevance for digital and algorithmically managed institutions. Integrating Indigenous leadership practices with analyses of digital HR, platform labour, and data-driven management, it critiques hierarchical authority, surveillance, and opaque algorithms. The panel explores how Indigenous governance principles can inform ethical organisational communication, participatory decision-making, transparent management systems, and fairer digital workplace policies.
Research Questions:
How do Indigenous models conceptualise governance as a communicative and relational process?
How can consensus-based decision-making challenge algorithmic authority and surveillance-driven management?
In what ways do Indigenous approaches to conflict resolution apply to digital workplaces and platform labour?
What governance frameworks ensure accountability and participation in algorithmically managed systems?
How can Indigenous leadership principles reshape organisational communication and digital labour policy?
Important Dates
Abstract Submission Deadline: April 30, 2026
Registration Opens: May 10, 2026
Registration Closes: June 10, 2026
Conference Dates: August 24 - 26, 2026
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