Section Business Meeting 2017

Minutes

IAMCR's History Section - Business meeting held on Thursday, 20.7.2017 at 2 p.m. -3.20 p.m. in Salón P. Obregón, Cartagena Convention Center

Chair: Nelson Ribeiro

Agenda

  1. Brief report on the meeting of the International Council and Heads of Sections and Working Groups on 16.7.2017.
  2. Report on the submission and reviewing process for the 2017 Conference
  3. Feedback on the 2017 conference from section members and participants
  4. Suggestions of topics for the next conference

1. Nelson Ribeiro presented a brief report about the meetings of the IC and the Heads of Sections and Working Groups. The next IAMCR conferences will take place in Oregon (2018), Madrid (2019) and possibly Tokyo (2020). There are concerns about having next year’s conference in the US as many participants might have to face serious difficulties to get their visas due to the US immigration policy. The local organizers will monitor this closely and offer help to all those who might encounter problems.
Each section and working group can propose a different reviewing form from the one being currently used on the IAMCR platform. There was a discussion on this matter among the members attending the Business Meeting which ended with two main suggestions: a) in most criteria the scale should also include the option “Non Applicable”; b) the final recommendation should be changed to: Accept, Accept if possible, Reject.

2. Nelson Ribeiro reported that the Section received 79 submissions. All papers were reviewed by 2 reviewers. Whenever there was a lack of consensus abstracts were send to a third reviewer. After the review process 44 abstracts were accepted (acceptance rate: 56%) and after withdrawals 38 papers were presented in 9 sessions.
Attendance in the sessions varied from 12 to 40.

3. The feedback on the sessions organized by the History Section was very positive. Members said to be impressed by the quality of the papers presented. The feedback was also mostly positive about the Section’s option to have two full session in Spanish language that were both very well attended. There was also a discussion about other possible solutions for the future, namely bilingual sessions.

4. Members were encouraged to suggest topics for next year’s call for papers. Journalism as a profession in different historical contexts, alternative types of journalism, representation of nature on the media, methodologies for communication history, and history of communication theory were some of ideas mentioned. Members also discussed the possibility of organizing a preconference in Oregon. Nelson Ribeiro said that a call for proposals might be issued after the Management Team evaluates the logistics involved.