Section Head Election 2019 - Call for candidates and statements

Political Economy Section

The IAMCR Political Economy Section will run elections for a newly created vice chair position during its business meeting during IAMCR 2019 in Madrid.

Two of the current officers of the Section, chair Rodrigo Gomez and vice-chair Peter Thompson have been in office since 2014. They were both re-elected to their current positions and Ben Birkinbine was elected as vice-chair at IAMCR 2018 in Eugene. 

The Section seeks applications for the third vice-chair position.  In the interest of creating more inclusive and equitable representation in the section leadership, preference will be given to those candidates who contribute to the gender diversity of the leadership.  In addition, the section strongly encourages members from the Global South to apply for the position. 

Any IAMCR member who would like to serve as an officer of the Political Economy Section must submit their name and institutional position, a statement of no more than 500 words (e.g. a bio and motivation statement), to the current officers (see contact details below) with a copy to IAMCR General Secretary Gerard Goggin gerard.goggin [at] sydney.edu.au and to the IAMCR secretariat membership [at] iamc.org, by 14 June 2019.

Section officers must be current IAMCR members, either directly or through an IAMCR institutional member who has listed them among its IAMCR representatives, and they must be members of the Political Economy Section.

  • Rodrigo Gómez: rgomez [at] correo.cua.uam.mx 
  • Peter Thompson: peter.thompson [at] vuw.ac.nz 
  • Ben Birkinbine: bbirkinbine [at] unr.edu

Candidates and statements

For Vice-Chair:

Statements

Yu Hong (Zhejiang University, China)

I am writing to nominate myself for the vice chair position of the Political Economy Section of IAMCR. After having studied and taught in the US for 15 plus years, I joined Zhejiang University, China, as a "100-Talents Program Young Professor" in Fall 2017 and have served as director of ZJU Institute of Communication Research and vice director of ZJU Research Center on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication.

I have been an active member in the IAMCR Political Economy Section: I chaired and participated in several panels and have regularly presented papers at the annual conference. With a focus in critical political economy, my scholarship on digital China contributes to the international political economy of digital capitalism, geopolitics of information, critical infrastructure studies, and critical internet policy studies. My most recent book Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy (U of Illinois Press, 2017) is recognized as an important contribution to the political economy of Chinese communication. I also contributed to Global Media Giants, a volume of comparative studies co-edited by Janet Wasko, Rodridgo Gomez, and Benjamin Birkinbine. 

Atop serving on school-wide committees, I have made service contributions to the field. I am the book review editor for Global Media and Communication and have served on the editorial board of Chinese Journal of Communication and International Journal of Communication respectively. I am also serving as the secretary of ICA’s Global Communication and Social Change Division from 2018 to 2019. In addition, my recognition by communication scholars from Asia is noteworthy. With my growing intellectual linkages with leading communication schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and other places, I am already well positioned to serve as an academic bridge between East and West, North and South.

I am extremely interested in this position as my scholarly focus and academic experience are an excellent fit for the position. For years, the Political Economy Section has been an indispensible intellectual hub for me and for many critical scholars that I know. I hope to have the opportunity to serve the community.

Thanks for your consideration!

Sincerely,

Yu Hong

Natàlia Ferrer Roca (University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain)

Dear IAMCR Political Economy Section scholars,

I would like to express my interest to serve as an officer of the IAMCR Political Economy Section.

I am an emerging young international scholar originally from Girona, a city half an hour from Barcelona. However, my professional life has taken me around the world, studying my BA in Journalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, my MA in Communications Policy at Westminster University (London) and my PhD in Media Studies from Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). I have just returned from four months at RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia) as a Visiting Research Fellow.

In addition, I have also worked as a consultant, researcher and advisor for several institutions, including the European Broadcasting Union, the Government of Catalonia for the Catalan Audiovisual Commission and the Regional Government of Barcelona. Moreover, I have been three times awarded for the Erasmus Mundus KA107 programme, which has allowed me to teach in Ghana, Madagascar and Seychelles. I am currently applying to teach in Bhutan and Mongolia.

I would like to ask for your vote to become the third vice-chair of the IAMCR Political Economy Section for four main reasons:

1. I offer age diversity: I am an emerging 33-year-old international scholar, who is able to bring a new perspective. I am very much willing to learn from the current team and, if members decide so, become the bridge between the current IAMCR generation and the next one.

2. I offer gender diversity: I am a female scholar, which can bring gender diversity in the leadership team.

3. I am multi-lingual: I understand and speak five languages, including the three official languages at IAMCR: English, Spanish and French. This will allow me to understand foreign abstracts and help scholars from around the world, who may not be proficient in English.

4. I offer geographic diversity: I provide a southern European perspective, adding to the current American, central-American and Oceanian viewpoints of the leadership team.

I look forward to meeting all of you face to face at IAMCR in Madrid next July.

Very best wishes,

Natàlia

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