Section Head Election 2016 - Candidate statements

Global Media Policy Working Group

At the upcoming July 2016 IAMCR conference in Leicester, the GMP Working Group will be holding elections for the offices of: two co-chair positions; and two vice-chair positions.

The term of each office is 4 years. A re-election to the same office for a further 4 year term is possible.

The election will take place at the GMP Business meeting in Leicester.

  • The current Chair, Gerard Goggin, will step down.
  • The current Vice-Chairs, Claudia Padovani and Arne Hintz, have expressed their intention to nominate for co-chair positions

Notwithstanding, nominations are welcome (and self-nominations are acceptable) --and please do not hesitate to be in touch for further information or to discuss any aspect of the roles or GMP work.

Candidates are asked to send their name, institutional affiliation, and statement of 500 words (max) to the current chair, Gerard Goggin <gerard.goggin[at]sydney.edu.au>. Please also send a copy to the IAMCR Secretary-General, Maria Michalis <M.Michalis[at]westminster.ac.uk> and IAMCR Secretariat <membership[at]iamcr.org> by 13 July 2016.

Candidates and statements

For Chair and Vice-chair:

Statements

Arne Hintz, University of Cardiff, United Kingdom

I have been involved with IAMCR and its Global Media Policy Working Group since my first IAMCR conference in Porto Alegre in 2004. Back then, and like others in the Group, I was closely involved with the World Summit on the Information Society and its follow-up processes. In 2009 I helped initiate the Working Group project “Mapping Global Media Policy” to better understand the detailed interactions of communication governance. I served as project manager and member of the project’s Steering Group. The project is now part of a global network of maps and observatories that address communication governance. In 2012 I formally became Vice-Chair of the Working Group.

For the past four years I have contributed to the development, programme and other activities of the Working Group. Due to my other commitment as Chair of the IAMCR Community Communication Section, the time I could spend on this was more limited, though, than I would have liked. After my section chair duties will end this year, I would like to spend more time on the Working Group and help expand its unique role within the association.

The Working Group was created to explore new developments in media policy research and practice, and to put those on the IAMCR agenda through innovative formats and activities. I would like to continue shaping and developing this important role. This may involve new session formats, the involvement of practitioners and external experts, and addressing emerging themes such as the implications of data-based and algorithmic processes, in addition to the continuing transformations of trans-national and multi-actor governance. In Leicester I will host a Working Group session on the new UK surveillance law (the Investigatory Powers Bill) and co-host a pre-conference on “Surveillance and Security in the Age of Algorithmic Communication”.

I am Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University, UK, where I chair the Research Group ‘Digital Media and Society’, direct an MA degree of the same title, and lead the collaborative research project “Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society”.

Petros Iosifidis, City University London, United Kingdom

I am applying for the role of Vice-Chair of the IAMCR Global Media Policy Working Group, as I believe I have the research and academic experience that successfully meets the requirements of the role. I am an established member of the Department of Sociology, City University London, conducting high-quality research especially in the global media and communications field. I have been leading the largest research group in the department of Sociology: Information Communication and Society (ICS) and have aggressively grown the size, output and impact of the research group by organizing research seminars, book launches, inviting guest speakers, and other activities under the auspices of the group. Over the past years I have been managing successfully the MA Media and Communications courses which attract >140 students annually. I have a strong international presence, evidenced in writing, reviews and the network of scholars who reference my work, and I keep organizing conferences/workshops at City, while attending international conferences such as IAMCR, ECREA, RIPE, WMEMC, EMMA and MeCCSA.

My research has markedly advanced, making an important contribution to how we may (and should) regulate the global media scene and to how we may (and should) think about public service media. I have acknowledged expertise in the realms of global communications policy and public service media and am expanding my expertise beyond this into media coverage of social networking. My 2011 theoretically and empirically robust sole authored book on Global Media and Communication Policy and my 2010 edited collection on Public Service Communication (both boosted by positive reviews), the 2015 co-edited book on Global Media and National Policies, and the 2016 co-authored book on Public Spheres and Social Media, among others, have raised my reputation as a thinker who is empirically rich, comparatively aware and theoretically sophisticated.

I feel my leadership and communications skills and my ability to organize my time individually and within a team, tied together with the noticeable development of my research record will enable me to fulfil the requirements of the role of Vice-Chair of the IAMCR Global Media Policy Working Group.

Let me summarise my main recent achievements relevant to the role:

  • Published a number of research monographs, co-authored and edited collections in the fields of global media policy, public service media and social media policy.
  • Awarded an EPSRC grant and have submitted 7 research applications for external funding mainly in the field of global media policy.
  • Led the ICS research group in the Dept. of Sociology.
  • Served in the Peer Review College of the ESRC, in the executive committee of Media, Communications & Cultural Studies Association, and in the steering committee of City’s Interdisciplinary Research Centre Law Justice & Journalism.
  • Co-edited the Book Series ‘Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business’ (http://link.springer.com/bookseries/14699).
  • Acted as Principal Editor for the International Journal of Digital Television (http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=175/). 
  • Acted as an advisor to the Greek government on media/communications issues.
  • Managed the MA Media and Communications programme with current student enrolment at >140.
  • Supervised a number of PhD students on topics related to global media policy.

Claudia Padovani, University of Padova, Italy

I have participated and contributed to the activities of the Working Group on Global Media Policy since its very first meeting, in 1998. In that context, I have been actively involved with IAMCR engagement with the different phases of the Un-promoted World Summit on the Information Society between 2001 and 2005, also linking academic work with the advocacy commitment of the CRIS Campaign, Communication Rights in the Information Society.

Through the Working Group and its initiatives – particularly the Mapping Global Media Policy project, that emerged as an idea in 2006 and evolved into a web-based resource in 2010 - I have contributed to establishing a field of study which has grown into an inspiring multifaceted domain of knowledge, that now calls on the academic community to develop new analytical frameworks and methodological approaches.
Since December 2013 I have also worked closely with IAMCR Task Force for the Unesco-sponsored Global Alliance for Media and Gender (Gamag): this has renovated my conviction that we, scholars, through our research and understanding can, and should, play a meaningful role in orientating policy developments; particularly when it comes to fostering values and practices of inclusion and respect for communication rights of women and men.

The result of these and other research activities is my current effort to ‘engender global media poliy’, addressing the disconnections still existing between the governance of global communication and the need to include a better understanding of gender equality and gender mainstream as fundamental and operational principles therein.

I trust the lessons learned, and my personal commitment of linking research activities with policy contexts and global processes that are relevant to future developments of media and communication, can be an asset in support of a truly global and policy-aware IAMCR, through the activities of the Working Group on Global Media Policy. I would be honoured to contribute my knowledge and energies to rethink the role of the Working Group in the context of global communication developments in the coming years, also in view of making gender equality a distinctive feature of the Group’s operations.

I am a senior lecturer and research at the Department of Politics, Law and International Studies at the University of Padova, where I teach International Communication. I also Direct the University Center for Gender Studies (since January 2014) and I am one of the funding members of a research group named Next Generation Global Studies (started in 2011), which organizes winters schools and academic exchanges related to a reconsideration of globality not as a subject of research, but as the condition within which we engage in intellectual tran-diciplinary work, with a critical perspective on Western-based conceptual and theoretical perspectives.