Section Head Election 2016 - Candidate statements

Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group

The IAMCR Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group will hold elections during the working group's scheduled business meeting at the Leicester conference. The positions of chair and two co-chairs are open and the term of office for all are four years.

Responsibilities for the chair and co-chairs include all phases of conference programming including the management and moderation of the paper selection process and timetabling of sessions. The chair, in consultation with the co-chairs and the working group, is also involved in association level policy discussion and decision-making. The working group is currently planning to strengthen its work between annual IAMCR conferences, for example, via joint panels in other conferences and publication cooperation.

The current Chair, Anastasia Grusha, as well as current Co-Chairs Katja Lehtisaari and Michael Meyen, are seeking re-election.

Nominations and self-nominations are invited. Nominees should preferably be members of the Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group. Nominees should forward to the current Chair, Anastasia Grusha <Anastasia_grusha[at]mail.ru> (including name, institutional affiliation, position and a statement of no more than 400 words) with a copy to IAMCR General Secretary Maria Michalis <M.Michalis[at]westminster.ac.uk> and to the IAMCR secretariat <membership[at]iamc.org>. The deadline for submitting candidacies is July 13.

Candidates and statements

For Chair and Co-Chairs:

Statements

Anastasia Grusha, Moscow State University, Russian Federation

I am an Associate Professor in Political Communication and International Journalism at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University (Russia). Also I have taught at various Italian universities (Milan, Rome, Florence, Perugia, Messina ets) as a Director of Italian-Russian Center for Research on Media, Culture and Communication. I was a visiting scholar at the University of Missouri (USA, 2003). Being a member of Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group  since 2001. I have served as chair of this working group for the last four years (before –as its Secretary) and now I am seeking re-election to continue the research organization in this fruitful and still very important field. Together with my brilliant colleagues Katja Lehtisaari (Finland) and Michael Meyen (Germany) we have significantly elaborated the core issues of the working group and its perspectives and have created a real team in order to better serve the interests of the working group and of IAMCR as a whole.

My main research area is close but not limited to the main topics of working group, for example, Russian media, non-Western media systems, international journalism, election coverage. 

I am a member of several academic organizations, including European Communication Research and Education Association (since 2008), Societa' europea di cultura (since 2007), National Association of Russian Mass Media Researchers (since 2012) what allows me to enlarge the cooperation between researchers from various countries on related to PSPAC WG topics.

Katja Lehtisaari, University of Helsinki, Finland

I have been co-chairing the Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group since 2012. I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland and a member of Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies – Choices of Russian Modernisation. My main research area has been Russian media, including topics like business media, magazines market, media structures and media policy. I have published scientific articles or edited or co-edited books on e.g. the development of journalism and the press market structures and media convergence, focusing mainly in Russia, Finland and Scandinavian countries. I am currently involved also in research on the role of media in civic unity and unrest in Central Asia. In addition, I am the editor-in-chief of journal Idäntutkimus, The Finnish Review of East European Studies.

I am seeking re-election for co-chair of the working group in order to continue to develop its activities in close cooperation with other chairs. I hope my experience on Russian, East European and Central Asian studies will be beneficial for managing and further development of the working group.

Michael Meyen, LMU Munich, Germany

Together with Anastasia Grusha and Katja Lehtisaari, I have been co-chairing the Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group since 2012. This teamwork has been one of my best professional experiences. With our team we not only combine different perspectives on media systems, journalism and communication problems in post-socialist and post-authoritarian societies but also a certain work ethic, a sense of labour organization, and collective spirit. So, it has always been fun to work with Anastasia and Katja. Apart from that, of course, the WG’s subject matter is more topical now than ever before. I personally first did research on mass media in East Germany before the Berlin wall came down and, then, on the GDR’s place in Germany’s collective memory. At the moment, one of my research topics is on mass media systems beyond the Western world. Since 2002, I have been working as a full professor at the department of communication studies and media research in Munich. I am seeking re-election for co-chair of the working group in order to continue to develop its activities as well as the cooperation with other chairs.

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