Letter to IAMCR Members from Janet Wasko, President
It is an honor to serve as the 11th IAMCR President and to be working with the new Executive Board and International Council, as well as other members, to build an even stronger and more dynamic organization. Although we have been involved in a number of activities since July, I can only mention a few of these here.
Durban conference. The post-conference survey received a high response rate and will be helpful in planning future conferences. A summary and analysis is included in this issue. The Scholarly Review Committee has conducted a survey to gather data on Section and Working Group activity before and during the conference. This information will be used to improve the paper submission process, as well as in assessing the health of these groups. An online discussion of the survey results also will be organized by the committee.
Membership and finances. Our membership campaign is currently underway and we are exploring new and innovative ways to increase membership in the association. Our financial situation is closely related to our membership efforts, although we are also exploring other fund-raising ideas.
Future conferences. The Executive Board has been working on arranging future conference sites and distributed a call for proposals in August. We look forward to announcing future conference sites as soon as possible. We are also doing research on and discussing the possibility and implications for returning to bi-annual conferences. This is an important issue and will receive careful and serious attention by the Executive Board over the next few months.
Publications. The Publications Committee and the Executive Board are considering ideas for the IAMCR’s book series (in addition to the Global Handbooks in Media and Communication Research Series with Wiley-Blackwell, which will continue to be edited by Annabelle Sreberny), as well as the issue of journals.
Regional/external relationships. As indicated by the contributions in this issue, we are continuing to build our relationships with regional associations, such as ALAIC, ECREA, AMIC, as well as with UNESCO. The IAMCR presented a panel at the ECREA conference in Istanbul in October and we are making plans for similar activities at ICA/London in June.
Committees. We have also focused on the formation of committees that will be working on many these activities, including three new groups approved by the International Council and/or General Assembly in Durban:
- Committee on Environmental Impact (Chair, Gabi Hadl)
- Task Force on Future Scenarios for the IAMCR (Chair, Cees Hamelink)
- Task Force on Changes in Academia and Future Directions for IAMCR (Chair, Friedrich Krotz)
Other committee chairs are listed on the IAMCR website and the membership of these committees will be posted shortly. We will be announcing progress on these various issues and activities in future bulletins and newsletters.
And, finally, building on the dynamic and inspirational conference in Durban, we are looking forward to our next conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 25-29. The Local Organization Committee, led by Paschal Preston, is actively working on plans for our meetings which to be held at Dublin City University.
The conference theme -- “Crises, ‘Creative Destruction’ and the Global Power and Communication Orders” -- offers the possibility to consider a wide range of issues related to media and communication and we look forward to another opportunity to gather, share our work, and further strengthen the global friendships that we have developed through the IAMCR -- the worldwide association representing media and communication scholars.
Best wishes to all for a peaceful and fulfilling conclusion to the year, 2012!
Janet