Meet the members of IAMCR 2024 Local Organising Committee:
Donald Matheson, Chair of LOC
University of Canterbury
Donald is a professor in Te Tari Mātai Pāpaho, the Department of Media and Communication. He is the author of Media Discourses (Open Univ Press, 2005) and Digital War Reporting (Polity Press, 2009, with Stuart Allan). He is the co-editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics, past-president of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association and co-director of the University of Canterbury Arts Digital Lab. He writes on journalism practice and culture, public communication in social media and communication ethics. In a previous life he was a journalist.
Zita Joyce
University of Canterbury
Zita Joyce is the head of Te Tari Mātai Pāpāho the Department of Media and Communication. Her research interests focus on the intersections between media technologies and social and cultural practice, in areas such as broadcasting and social media. She is particularly interested in creative uses of technologies in visual and sound arts and experimental music, the conceptualisation and use of radio spectrum and wireless technologies, and disaster recovery and resilience for creative communities.
Bingjuan Xiong
University of Auckland
Bing is a lecturer in Communication at the University of Auckland. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2017 and worked as an assistant professor in Media and Communication Studies at the University of Nottingham - Ningbo China. Bing's research explores the intersection of communication, culture, and technology in Chinese society, with a particular focus on issues around identity, social relationships, and political actions. Her work has been published in the Journal of Communication, the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, among others.
Peter Thompson
Victoria University of Wellington
Peter is an associate professor in media and communication at Victoria University of Wellington (Te Herenga Waka). Primarily a political economist, his research specializes in media policy and communication in financial markets. He is founding co-editor of the Political Economy of Communication journal and is a former co-vice chair of IAMCR’s Political Economy section.
Elspeth Tilley
Massey University
Elspeth (she/her/Pākehā) is Associate Professor of Expressive Arts at Massey University, Aotearoa (New Zealand). Combining diverse research experiences across media, communication, ethics, and the arts, her current research and teaching focus on implementing and interrogating transdisciplinary creative activism. Elspeth has published more than 200 academic and creative outputs and received multiple awards. She produces Climate Change Theatre Action Aotearoa and runs Te Hā Tangata, a human library on homelessness that supports people experiencing housing deprivation to tell their stories. Most recently Elspeth edited the book Creative Activism: Research, Pedagogy and Practice (CSP/EBSCO, 2022).
Verica Rupar
Auckland university of Technology
Verica is a professor of journalism at the School of Communication Studies, AUT, New Zealand, and a Chair of the World Journalism Education Council. Her research focuses on journalism’s contribution to democratic society, and its relation to a wider social, political, and cultural change.
Tara Ross
University of Canterbury
Tara Ross (Tuvaluan/Pākehā) is a senior lecturer and head of the journalism programme at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, the University of Canterbury. Before taking up a role in academia, she was an award-winning senior reporter, and her research interests focus on inclusive journalism, ethnic minority media and Pacific media. She is currently Associate Dean Research of UC's Faculty of Arts and is a founding associate editor of the interdisciplinary Pacific studies journal, Pacific Dynamics.
Brett Nicholls
University of Otago
Brett is Head of Media, Film and Communication at the University of Otago. Working in critical theory, he focusses on media culture and how communication processes (re)produce social reality. Most recently he published with Rosie Overell an edited volume titled Post-Truth and the Mediation of Reality (2019). He is editor of Borderlands: Culture, Politics, Law and Earth, and editor of Baudrillard Now.
Debashish Munshi
University of Waikato
Debashish Munshi is Professor of Management Communication at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. His research interests lie at the intersections of communication, culture, sustainability, and social change. He has written numerous journal articles and also has six books to his name, most recent of which are Public Relations and Sustainable Citizenship: Representing the Unrepresented (Routledge, 2021) and Climate Futures: Reimagining Global Climate Justice (Zed Books/Bloomsbury 2019).
Linda Jean Kenix
University of Canterbury
Linda Jean Kenix is Professor in the Media and Communication department. She is also the Head of the School of Language, Social, and Political Sciences with approximately 60 staff members. Linda Jean serves on several editorial boards, such as Media International Australia, Newspaper Research Journal and Digital Journalism. She continues to explore the representation of marginal groups in the news of mass and alternative media through over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles. Linda Jean also wrote Alternative and Mainstream Media: The Converging Spectrum in 2011 (Bloomsbury) and co-edited Alternative Media Meets Mainstream Politics: Activist Nation Rising with Josh Atkinson in 2019 (Lexington).
Corban Te Aika
Manawhenua representative
Ngāi Tūāhuriri and University of Canterbury
Corban is Ngāi Tūāhuriri, who are manawhenua, that is, the indigenous people on whose land the city of Ōtautahi Christchurch stands. He works as a kaiārahi, a Māori academic advisor, at the University of Canterbury and represents his hapū (tribal group) in a number of roles, including the board of Canterbury Museum, where he earlier worked as a curator of human history. His academic background is in Māori and Indigenous Studies and Political Science. In these roles, Corban’s main goal is always on the restoration and revitalisation of mātauranga Māori (indigenous knowledge) and the decolonisation, or in some cases, indigenisation of western institutions and structures. He brings rich people skills to the conference, along with a broad general knowledge base around te reo Māori (Māori language) and mātauranga Māori.
Natalia Chaban
University of Canterbury
Natalia Chaban is Professor in the Media and Communication department. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on cognitive and semiotic aspects of political and media discourses, image and perceptions studies within the EU and IR contexts, and public diplomacy and political communication. Natalia widely publishes. She is a twice-awarded Jean Monnet Chair, President of Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand, co-editor of the peer-reviewed Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies and leader of a number of transnational research projects supported by the European Commission and NATO.
Charlotte Emery
Project Manager, Conference Innovators
Charlotte is a Project Manager at Conference Innovators and has a proven track record of outstanding conference management throughout Christchurch and New Zealand. Charlotte leads the logistical side of the conference management and is extremely passionate about creating exceptional customer experiences and loves being involved from beginning to end to deliver events with perfection, style and professionalism.
