From the President's desk

IAMCR Newsletter - January 2016

Dear Colleagues,

IAMCR serves members by organizing conferences, connecting members, sharing information, and many other activities. The association also plays a role in representing media and communication researchers around the world in various ways. We have been actively working to expand and further develop these external activities and I'm pleased to note that the membership survey reported on elsewhere in this newsletter indicates that these activities are valued by the vast majority of members (87% report that they value them "highly" or "fairly highly"). As we begin the new year, I’d like to reflect on a few of our accomplishments during 2015.

Global Alliance for Media and Gender (GAMAG)

IAMCR's Task Force for the Global Alliance on Media and Gender has been actively involved in this UNESCO-sponsored alliance since its founding in 2013. The Task Force was well-represented at the International Development Cooperation Meeting on Gender and Media and the First GAMAG General Assembly at the Palais des Nations, in Geneva, in December 2015.

The Task Force has taken a leadership position in planning GAMAG’s research activities and at the events in Geneva, an IAMCR delegation, led by Vice President, Aimee Vega Montiel, with Claudia Padovani, Karen Ross, and myself, continued to contribute to the alliance’s development, specifically lobbying for research and especially emphasizing the importance of media policy issues. IAMCR also will participate at the sixtieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, to be held March 2016 at the United Nations in New York. IAMCR Task Force members will be joining with UN Women to organize a panel at that event.

WSIS+10

During the year, IAMCR also participated in the WSIS+10 process. As observed by the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), “The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process and its outcome documents are considered cornerstones of international norms and discourse on Internet policy and governance.” WSIS+10 represents the 10-year anniversary of the process and the UN’s evaluation of its progress and its future.  

In July, Divina Frau-Meigs represented IAMCR at the WSIS+10 Informal Interactive Stakeholder Consultation at the UN in New York. In December, Jeremy Shtern, Co-Chair of our Task Force on Media and Communications Policy, joined me at the WSIS+10 UN General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting in New York. IAMCR contributed comments to the Draft Outcome Document approved at that meeting and endorsed points relating to Human Rights in the Information Society, Network Neutrality, and the continuation of the IGF mandate. Our statement emphasized that academic researchers play a crucial role in building a knowledge society based on principles of transparent, democratic governance and human rights. As a community of educators and researchers, IAMCR also drew attention to the need to introduce education and research to the WSIS agenda, as it needs to move beyond capacity building and traditional literacy. (For more information, see https://publicadministration.un.org/wsis10/ )

IAMCR has been involved with the WSIS process for many years and we will continue to monitor its progress and support IAMCR members who are interested in these efforts.

Development communication and the FAO

In November, Bruce Girard represented IAMCR at the Latin American Regional Forum on Territorial Development, Innovation and Rural Communication in Brasilia, Brazil.  The event was organised by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). IAMCR and a number of members of the Participatory Communication Research Section have partnered with the FAO to research the role of rural communication services and guide the development of new and expanded rural communication services for small-holder farming.

Clearinghouse for Public Statements

Another significant development during 2015 was the establishment of our Clearinghouse for Public Statements. The Clearinghouse mission is to help with responding to and making public statements, which will be guided by, and restricted to, IAMCR’s remit. In other words, statements will focus on media/communication issues and reflect IAMCR's critical position. (See the IAMCR Clearinghouse Mandate and Working Procedures).

The first use of the Clearinghouse process was in September, when we issued a public statement on the future of the British Broadcasting Corporation, which was reviewed by the Clearinghouse. A response was received from the office of the British Prime Minister, requesting a written statement be sent to the Chair of the British House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. Thanks to the efforts of several members, led by Sylvia Harvey, IAMCR submitted written evidence to the committee's inquiry into the BBC Charter Renewal on October 5th.

The Clearinghouse process is also being used to review statements that the organization submits or presents at international meetings. This will build a more participatory process for IAMCR’s external activities, which has been one of the key goals of the current Executive Board. Once again it is heartening to note that according to the survey, this type of activity is also endorsed by the vast majority (84%) of our members.

Task Force on Academic Life

Two questions included in our membership survey sought to gauge members' interest in the association taking a more active role to defend academic freedom and promote better employment standards in the field. The surprisingly high level of support, 75% of respondents, valued IAMCR's involvement in these issues either very or fairly highly in both cases.  This result makes the relaunch of IAMCR's Committee for the Improvement of Academic Life, with a mandate to work on these issues, both timely and important.

Anthony Moretti, the committee's new chair, has reviewed its goals and developed a plan for activating the committee. The renewed mandate foresees an active committee, "assessing and replying forcefully to the deterioration of academic labour rights and violations of academic freedom or labour rights," while also "analyzing the quality of academic environments" and "liaising with human rights [and other] organizations." IAMCR members interested in joining the committee are encouraged to contact Anthony Moretti.

Palgrave/IAMCR book series

The member survey also showed strong support for increased publishing activities, with over 90 percent of respondents strongly agreeing or agreeing that IAMCR should be a facilitator of academic research and publication. We have also been active on this front and three titles have been published in the Palgrave/IAMCR Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research series. You can find more information on the titles elsewhere in this newsletter and on the series website.

Leicester 2016 & Cartagena 2017

Meanwhile, as you will read elsewhere in this issue, plans are moving along for our 2016 conference in Leicester, England. We have already received proposals for seven pre-conferences and are looking forward to a strong response to the call for papers.

Finally, we’re pleased as well to announce that our 2017 conference will be in Cartagena, Colombia, hosted by UNIMINUTO (Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios). We’re excited to be returning to Latin America and will announce more information during the Leicester conference.

Best wishes to everyone for a peaceful and productive new year.

Janet Wasko
January 2016