Equality and freedom are key political aspirations of modernity, from the French Revolution to the Arab Spring and beyond. Culture, media and communication (including film, television, publishing, music, digital and social media) are now central to the pursuit of these goals, and to dynamics of power and control. This conference theme provides the opportunity for MeCCSA to focus on issues of political justice in the context of our field and we invite papers that consider the complex relationship between different forms of media and communication, the circumstances in which they are produced, distributed and consumed, and the consequences for the realization of different forms of equality and freedom at local, national, regional and global levels. Papers might address the following questions, among others:

·How do contemporary media and culture promote or inhibit the pursuit of freedoms?

·Which freedoms should be valued and why?

·In what ways do contemporary media and popular culture reflect, represent and re-shape inequality and constraint?

·In what ways might the pursuit of putative ‘freedoms’ (for example in neo-liberal media policy or environmental policy) potentially serve to reinforce inequalities (such as ongoing digital divides or the unequal impacts of environmental change)?

·How do audience interactions with different media affect the realization of freedoms and the contestation of inequalities?

·How do different freedoms and inequalities affect the interactions of media with other dimensions of culture?

·How do different cultural, geographical and political contexts influence the role played by media in the pursuit of different freedoms, as well as the outcomes of their involvement?

·Which kinds of theory might best allow us to understand contemporary and historical struggles over liberty and justice in the media, popular culture and beyond?