2026 Moral Media Conference

Call for Papers

9th Annual Moral Media Conference

University of Florida, February 20-22, 2026

University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications is proud to announce that it will host the 9th annual Moral Media Conference (https://moralmedia.org/). Please consider submitting your work based on the following call for papers.

Conference Theme: Strong Methods for Social Good

Through keynote lectures, original research presentations, posters, and collaborative discussions, this year’s conference will explore the role of rigorous methodology as the foundation for meaningful social impact of media research related to morality. We seek to challenge any existing misconceptions that methodological rigor and social impact are tradeoffs in research, highlighting how strong methods can boost the academy’s public credibility and promote knowledge generation for the social good.

Preliminary Details*:

  • Conference events will begin in the early evening of Friday, February 20, and will conclude midday on Sunday, February 22
  • Registration fee: $0
  • Discounted conference rates are available at two local hotels (details for reserving rooms will be shared on the conference website by the end of September):
    • Reitz Union Hotel, $130/night
    • The AC Hotel Gainesville Downtown, $179/night
  • Two accomplished keynote speakers will participate in the conference; details forthcoming

*Additional details will be announced as they become available at https://moralmedia.org/.

Call for Abstract Submissions (submission deadline of December 5, 2025, 11:59 p.m. EST):

Scholars at every career level (including graduate students) and in every discipline are encouraged to submit. The online submission form will be available November 1, 2025, at https://moralmedia.org/.

Submissions should fall into one of two tracks:

Track 1: Conference Theme Extended Abstracts (<1000 words): We welcome extended abstracts representing both completed works and works in progress that explicitly address the conference theme of Strong Methods for Social Good. Specifically, work in this track should be focused on rigorous methodology, with long-term potential to enhance scientific credibility and/or contribute to social good (broadly construed). Such works might focus solely on advancing methodology in some way (e.g., by explicating a methodological concept or proposing a new measurement tool), or they might apply rigorous methods to answer broader theoretical and/or social questions.

We plan to program a selection of these submissions in a keynote theme panel. Submissions to Track 1 not selected for the keynote theme panel will still be considered for potential programming in other poster or panel sessions; submission to Track 1 (as opposed to Track 2) will in no way hurt the submitter’s overall chance of acceptance to the conference.

Submissions for this track might include (but are not at all limited to):

  • Work that addresses problems of measurement in media and morality research (e.g., scale validation, alternatives to self-report measurement)
  • Systematic or scoping reviews that identify methodological trends and needs in media and morality research
  • Projects that successfully investigate difficult-to-reach populations or contexts
  • Projects that utilize open science in ways that promote accountability and further idea generation in media and morality research
  • Projects that apply previously underutilized methodological techniques from other disciplines or subfields to the research area of media and morality
  • Work that develops new methodological tools for application in the area of media and morality research (e.g., validated stimuli sets, open code dictionaries, codebooks, etc.)
  • Work that engages in direct or conceptual replication of existing work in media and morality research
  • Projects that examine different analytical approaches to the same datasets to determine how analysis influences conclusions

Submission Guidelines for Track 1:

  • Submit your work as an extended abstract.
  • 1000-word limit for submission text (excluding title page, references, tables/figures).
    • Please include a brief literature review, summary of methods, summary of results (for data-driven projects), and a brief discussion.
  • Please be sure to particularly emphasize in your extended abstract text how the current project relates to the conference theme.
  • Please include any supplemental information in an OSF.io project and include a link to the OSF repository in your submission.
  • Completed works should not have been accepted for journal publication at the time of submission. Data-driven projects should have at least preliminary data analysis completed at the time of submission.

Track 2: General Works-in-Progress Short Abstracts (<500 words): We welcome works in progress related to media and morality (broadly conceived) at any stage of development prior to journal submission. We encourage projects that emphasize methodological rigor and its connection to social good in the context of media and morality; however, all projects related to media and morality will be considered.

Submission Guidelines for Track 2:

  • Submit your work as an abstract.
  • 500-word limit for submission text (excluding title page, references, tables/figures).
  • Please include any supplemental information (if needed) in an OSF.io project and include a link to the OSF repository in your submission.

We look forward to hosting you in Gainesville! Please reach out to the conference organizers (Rebecca Frazer and the UF College of Journalism and Communications conference planning team) at moralmedia2026@gmail.com with any questions.

Timeline:

  • November 1, 2025: Submission site opens at https://moralmedia.org/.
  • December 5, 2025: Submission deadline
  • Mid-December, 2025: Acceptance notifications; preliminary conference schedule released
  • January 6, 2026: Registration deadline
  • February 20–22, 2026: Conference