IAMCR Newsletter - September 2024

Table of contents

  • New Executive Board, International Council and President
  • Ōtautahi Christchurch 2024
  • IAMCR News
    • Singapore 2025
    • 2024 awards recipients
    • Support IAMCR member detained in Azerbaijan
    • Renew your membership
  • Section and Working Group news
    • Leadership changes
    • New working groups
    • ESN Academic Publishing Webinar
  • Upcoming events
    • IAMCR @ECREA 2024
    • Political Economy book talk
    • Participatory & Community Communication webinar
    • CfP for Political Communication regional conference
  • Publications
    • Political Economy Journal
    • IAMCR/Palgrave book series
    • IAMCR/Wiley series
  • Members’books

New Executive Board, International Council and President

 The new Executive Board and International Council elected by IAMCR’s membership in April formally took position at the General Assembly held in Christchurch on 4 July. Meet the members of the Executive Board here and the International Council here. You can also read a message from Daya Thussu, IAMCR’s newly elected president, in which he reflects on his vision to strengthen the Association’s global reach, foster connections between the Global North and South, and narrow the intellectual and cultural divides in a polarised world.


Ōtautahi Christchurch 2024

 With more than 1,300 participants from 66 countries, attending more than 300 parallel sessions, 13 special and partner sessions, three plenaries, and several social events, and impeccable organisation, the Christchurch conference was very favourably evaluated by participants. If you want to revisit the plenary sessions, or see them for the first time, they are online at https://iamcr.org//christchurch2024/plenaries. You can also consult the programme and the abstracts of the conference’s nearly 1,300 papers.

Donald Matheson, Chair of the Local Organising Committee, shares his reflections in a letter addressed to all conference participants

We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of IAMCR Christchurch2024.


IAMCR News


Singapore 2025

Hosted by Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, IAMCR 2025 will be held from 13-17 July, building on the theme “Communicating Environmental Justice”. Watch this video with welcoming words from Jack Qiu, Chair of the Singapore Local Organising Committee.

The call for papers will be launched in November. Stay tuned!


2024 awards recipients

Four awards were granted at the Christchurch 2024 conference to papers presented at the conference.

Please join us in congratulating the awardees. They are:

  • The Annabelle Sreberny Memorial Award:  Ratnamala Vanamamalai and Anantha Raman Perumal (Mizoram University, India), Yangjiadi Liu, Xiaoyan Fu, Maggie Qin and Chuanyu Li (Sun Yat-sen University, China), and Boyuan Wang and Yifei Li (School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) 
     
  • The Urban Communication Award: Hongyu Zhu and Zizhong Zhang (Tsinghua University), and Yanchun Chen and Wenqiang Han (Communication University of China) 
     
  • The Climate Change Communication Award: Aocheng Zhou, Yingyuan Li, Ketong Cheng, Yuxi He, and Zepei Wang (Communication University of China) and Miao Chu, (Xi’an Jiatong University China), Connie Yuan, (Cornell University, USA), Daniel Tong, and Siqi Ma (George Mason University, USA)  
     
  • The Rural Communication Services Research Award: Ibnu Budiman (Bogor Agriculture University, Indonesia), Tim Fry (University of Reading, UK), and Paolo Mefalopulos (UNICEF, Chile).

Click on the links above to read more about the winners and watch short videos with their statements.

In addition, 28 travel grants were awarded to support the participation of IAMCR members from low and middle-income countries at the Christchurch conference.

  • 21 grants were given to early-stage scholars, providing them with the opportunity to present their research and network with colleagues. Read their testimonies >
     
  • 7 grants were awarded to IAMCR officers, who play a crucial role in organizing the conference programme, enabling them to attend and contribute to the event.

Support IAMCR member detained in Azerbaijan 

Bahruz Samadov, a doctoral student at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague and a member of IAMCR, was detained by Azerbaijan’s State Security Service and subsequently charged with 'high treason'. According to Amnesty International the charges stem from “his critical articles on Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh policy and connections with Armenian activists”. Supporters are encouraged to sign a petition calling for his immediate release. Read more >


Renew your membership   

As we prepare for the upcoming membership renewal campaign, we encourage you to renew your membership now to ensure it is valid until December 31, 2025. Renewing in advance will help streamline the process and keep your membership active without interruption

To renew as an individual member, please send an email to info@iamcr.org, and we will provide you with a renewal link.

If you are a representative of an institutional member, you can log into your account and select My Membership from the menu to check if your institution’s membership needs renewal. While logged in, you can also view a list of your institution’s representatives, including the administrator who handles membership renewals.


Section and Working Group news


Leadership changes

Several of IAMCR’s thematic sections and working groups held online elections for new heads this year. Please join us in thanking the outgoing heads of sections and working groups and welcoming the new ones. For a list of the eleven sections and working groups that held elections, and the election results, see the Section & Working Group election results. To see the current leadership of any of IAMCR’s 37 thematic sections and working groups select it from the list at https://iamcr.org/s-wg.


New working groups

This year, four new working groups have been added: the Communication, Social Justice and Democracy Working Group, the Inclusive Communication and People with Disabilities Working Group, the Multimodal Communication Research Working Group, and the Organizational Communication Working Group.

If your research interests align with the topics covered by these groups or if your work can contribute to their discussions, we encourage you to join and become involved in their activities. To join any of these new working groups log into your IAMCR account and select My Sections and Working Groups from the menu.


ESN Academic Publishing Webinar

 On 4 September, the Emerging Scholars Network hosted a webinar on risks and opportunities in academic publishing. Speakers included Francesca Musiani (French National Centre for Scientific Research) on open access, Sumit Narula (Amity University) on predatory journals, and Lei Guo (Fudan University) on artificial intelligence. Watch the recording here


Upcoming events


IAMCR @ECREA 2024

IAMCR will present a special panel at the European Communication Reasearch and Education Association (ECREA) 2024 Conference to be held from 24 to 27 September 2024 at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. If you are attending the ECREA conference you are cordially invited to join us at this special session. Read more >


Political Economy book talk

14 October - The Political Economy Section will host a book talk on Political Economy of Media and Communication: Methodological Approaches. Featuring contributions from many IAMCR members across the globe, this volume offers a diverse range of methodological perspectives and presents a state of the art in the field.  The event will be held in both English and Spanish. Read more >


Participatory & Community Communication webinar

15-16 October - As part of the IAMCR Webinar Series, the Participatory Communication Research and the Community Communication and Alternative Media Sections will be holding a two-day webinar on the theme of Environmental and Social Justice: Participatory & Community Communication.

The call for submissions is now open until 17 September. Read the full call for papers.

More information about the webinar, and registration procedures at https://iamcr.org/webinars/environmental-socialjustice


CfP for Political Communication regional conference

The Political Communication Research Section calls for submissions for a Regional Conference on the theme Political Communication in Latin America: Populism, Democratic Dilemmas and Disintermediation Technologies, to be held on 20-22 May, 2025, at the Institute of Government Sciences and Strategic Development (ICGDE) of the Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico. 

The deadline for abstract submissions is 18 November, 2024

The Conference will have a mixed nature, with hybrid sessions, both in-person and online. See the full call for papers or visit the conference website for more information.


Publications


Political Economy Journal

Volume 10 Issue 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. IAMCR colleagues that presented papers at the IAMCR 2024 conference are encouraged to submit their work to the journal.

IAMCR/Palgrave book series

The Palgrave/IAMCR book series Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research published three new titles in 2024. “Epistemic Rights in the Era of Digital Disruption” (open access), edited by Minna Aslama Horowitz, Hannu Nieminen, Katja Lehtisaari and Alessandro D'Arma, “Children and Young People’s Digital Lifeworlds” by Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam, and “The Instant World Report” by Aliaa Dakroury.

IAMCR members are eligible for a 35% discount on these or any other title in the series. To access the discount send an email to GlobalTransformations@iamcr.org.

IAMCR/Wiley series

 We are pleased to announce the forthcoming title in The Global Handbooks in Media and Communication Research series, published by IAMCR and Wiley Blackwell. The Handbook of Conflict and Peace Communication, edited by Sudeshna Roy delivers an authoritative exploration of a variety of critical conflicts in the world and a spectrum of approaches to peace communication.

IAMCR members are eligible for a 30% discount on this or any other title in the series (valid until 31 December 2025). To access the discount send an email to GlobalHandbooks@iamcr.org.

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.