IAMCR Newsletter - January 2023

In this issue...

Letter from the President

Nico Carpentier, President, IAMCR

In this letter to the members, IAMCR president, Nico Carpentier, reflects on 2022’s accomplishments and plans for 2023. Read it here >

IAMCR 2023

OCP23 + Lyon23 = IAMCR2023

After three consecutive years of online conferences, we will be meeting face-to-face for Lyon23 from 9-13 July. Members who don’t want to or can’t travel to Lyon will be able to join in the Online Conference Papers component –OCP23– which will launch on 26 June. Read more about how to participate in Lyon23 and OCP23 >

The deadline to submit abstracts for IAMCR 2023, both on-site and online, is less than a month away, on 9 February 2023 at 23h59 UTC. You can read the general call for proposals, and the individual calls for proposals of IAMCR's 33 thematic sections and working groups, and Flow34 on the conference website.

Travel grants

More than twenty five travel grants of up to US$1,500 will be made available to early-career scholars, who are members of IAMCR, reside in low and middle income countries and have papers accepted for presentation on site at the Lyon23 conference. The grants are intended to help offset the travel costs of IAMCR members who would otherwise be unable to attend the conference. Read more >

Preconferences

Several pre-conference events are being planned for the days leading up to the main conference in Lyon and its surrounding areas. These events can be organised by individual or institutional IAMCR members alone or in partnership with others. There is still time to apply for a preconference, until the 9 February deadline. Preconferences will be announced on the conference website as they are confirmed. 

Interested in hosting a future IAMCR conference?

IAMCR will consider proposals for hosting and organisation of conferences for 2025 and beyond.  IAMCR conferences provide universities, regional academic associations, research institutes and policy centres with significant opportunities to showcase their work and promote their activities, while fostering energy and creativity around a large international project. Expressions of interest should be submitted to the Executive Board by 31 March 2023. Read more >

IAMCR News

Annabelle Sreberny (1949-2022)

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the sudden passing of Annabelle Sreberny on 30 December. Annabelle was president of IAMCR from 2008 to 2012 and will be remembered by many for her contributions to the field, for her eloquence and for her lively sense of humour.
We send our deepest condolences to her family and friends. A special session to honour her and her contribution is being planned for the Lyon conference.

Awards 2023

IAMCR is offering several awards to authors of papers accepted for presentation in our 2023 conference, both in Lyon (Lyon23) or in the parallel Online Conference Papers (OCP23).
  • Rural Communication Services Research Awards, offered in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), will provide support for the presentation of four papers that advance our understanding of rural communication services.
  • Awards in memory of Dallas Smythe, will be given to three papers that combine scholarly excellence with a commitment to developing and extending the critical, innovative and engaged spirit that characterised Smythe’s contribution to media/communications analysis.
  • Climate Change Communication Awards will be given to three papers that display scholarly excellence, are innovative in nature, and have an explicit focus on climate change communication.

Call for IAMCR Peace Fellowships

The IAMCR peace fellowships aim to promote collaboration between scholars from two regions or communities that are currently, or have recently been, involved in an antagonistic conflict. The fellowships will last 2 years and will provide financial support for peace fellows to present their work at a future IAMCR conference. The deadline for application is 1 September 2023.

UNESCO preconference

IAMCR will host a preconference to UNESCO’s Global Conference “Regulating Digital Platforms for Information as a Public Good” in February. The preconference, "Governing the Internet for Democracy: Lessons from Research Embracing a Multicentred World", will be held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 21 February 2023.

Publications Committee and open science

IAMCR’s Publications Committee will host a series of roundtables exploring the politics of knowledge and its dissemination. The first one titled “What does the Open Science Movement mean for the future of the field of media and communication?” will be held on 9 February at 14h00 UTC on Zoom. More information and registration >

Clearinghouse for Public Statements

    IAMCR’s Clearinghouse for Public Statements issued five statements in recent months:

      The Clearinghouse processes statements and/or manages the process of signing statements generated by others, that are principally concerned with issues relating to media/communications and where IAMCR members have substantive scientific expertise that provides a basis for seeking to influence discursive or material practice.

        Find out more about Clearinghouse activities here >

        Presidential PhD Research Webinars

        The Presidential PhD Research Webinars are a new initiative that aim to open up channels for greater engagement and participation, and to provide more visibility for the research that early-stage scholars do. Two webinars were held so far. The first one titled “Communication, Citizenship and Representative Democracy” brought together doctoral scholars to discuss the place and role of citizens in representative democracy. The second one held this month, discussed the role of digital media and media literacy during pandemic times. Read more >

        Section and Working Group news

        Elections 2023

        Several of IAMCR's sections and working groups will hold elections for their leadership teams in 2023. They are:

        1. Communication Policy and Technology Section
        2. Community Communication and Alternative Media Section
        3. Diaspora and Media Working group
        4. Emerging Scholars Network Section
        5. Health Communication Working Group
        6. Law Section
        7. Media, Communication and Sport Section
        8. Media Education Research Section
        9. Media Production Analysis Working Group
        10. Media Sector Development working group
        11. Political Communication Research Section
        12. Political Economy Section
        13. Popular Culture Working Group
        14. Religion and Communication
        15. Rural Communication Working Group
        16. Visual Culture Working Group

        The call for candidates will be launched in April. To stand for a position or to vote you must be a member of the section or working group. Log in to your IAMCR account to see or change the sections/working groups you are a member of. Want to get more involved in the work of a section or working group? Contact the current heads for details about what the available positions entail.

        VIC cine club and dossier

        As part of the VIC CineClub, the Visual Culture Working Group invities members to share their insights on two French movies: "Muriel" by Alain Resnais and “Rust and Bone” by Jacques Audiart. VIC is also planning a dossier about French Cinematography organized by Denize Araujo and edited by Claudia Lambach. Read more >

        Diaspora and Media roundtables

        IAMCR’s Diaspora and Media Working Group organised two online roundtables on ‘Global South Perspectives on International Migration, Diasporas and Mobility in the Post-digital Era’, one of them focused on Africa and the other on Asia. The third and final roundtable of the series will be held in June 2023, and will focus on Latin America. Watch the videos here >

        The Political Economy of Communication

        The Emerging Scholars Network hosted two workshops for early career scholars. In February, a three-day online professionalization workshop titled “Research, Publish, Engage: Workshops for Emerging Communication Scholars” organised in coordination with the Communication Policy and Technology section. In September, a workshop in collaboration with the School of Communication of Daystar University (Kenya), addressing the challenges that graduate students face in getting published, with a focus on responding to calls for papers.

        Read more about ESN workshops

        Publications

        New Palgrave books

        • The IAMCR/Palgrave book series, Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research, recently published two new titles:"Media Governance: A Cosmopolitan Critique", edited by Sarah Anne Ganter and Hanan Badr, and"Communicology of the South" edited by Carlos F. Del Valle Rojas and Francisco Sierra Caballero. IAMCR members are entitled to a 35% discount on all titles in the series. Send an email to GlobalTransformations [at] iamcr.org to access the discount.
        • Sadia Jamil and Bruce Mutsvairo are the new editors of the series, taking over from Claudia Padovani and Marjan De Bruin, who edited the series since its inauguration in 2014. Read more >

        The Political Economy of Communication

        Volume 9, Number 2 of The Political Economy of Communication is now available. The peer-reviewed and open access journal is published under the auspices of the IAMCR Political Economy Section.

        Members' books

        IAMCR members are invited to announce their recently published books and book chapters to the IAMCR community and website visitors. Click here to see the most recent ones.