In keeping with the main conference theme, “Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, & Reimagination ,” this year’s call urged Preconference submitters to consider how communication theory, as well as trends in journalism, digital technologies, and our broader media environment interact with – or shape – democratic norms, institutions, and processes. As always, we encouraged scholars to think in terms of fundamental normative questions of democratic health, and ways of applying political communication research to advance our understanding of – and even help solve – the big questions of our time.