Section Head Election 2016 - Candidate statements

Participatory Communication Research Section

The Participatory Communication Research section will be holding elections during the IAMCR 2016 conference and is calling for nominations for the positions of chair and cice-chair. The duration of the mandate is four years and the section officers can be reelected to a further term in the same position once.

The Section currently has one chair, Satarupa Dasgupta (Manavi, USA; elected in 2012), and two vice-chairs: Florencia Enghel (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Media, Stockholm University, Sweden; elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2012) and Elske van de Fliert (Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change, School of Communication and Arts, The University of Queensland, Australia; elected in 2012).

At the time of issuing this call the chair and vice-chairs are considering whether they will step down or renominate for any of the positions. Their respective decisions will be announced by no later than the deadline for candidate statements on July 13, 2016.

Candidates interested in running for PCR office are requested to put their names forward for election by no later than July 13, 2016. Please send your name, institutional affiliation, position and a statement of no more than 500 words to the current Section Chair Satarupa Dasgupta (satarupadasgupta[at]gmail.com) cc to vice-chairs Elske van de Fliert (e.vandefliert[at]uq.edu.au) and Florencia Enghel (florenghel[at]gmail.com) as well as IAMCR General Secretary Maria Michalis (m.michalis[at]westminster.ac.uk) and the IAMCR secretariat (membership[at]iamcr.org).
Election will take place at the Participatory Communication Research Section business meeting in Leicester.

If you would like to discuss the responsibilities of the Section's chair and vice-chair, as well as the challenges and possibilities it faces, please feel free to contact any of us.

Candidates and statements for Section officers

    Statements

    Jonas Agerbaek, Roskilde University, Denmark

    IAMCR is the key international conference for participatory communication research. As PCR Section Vice-Chair, I will be committed to continue providing this space for meeting and reflecting upon the current developments of our field – both within and between conferences.

    I am a PhD Fellow studying the organizing and participatory practices of an NGO-driven communication for social change program in East Africa. I am particularly interested in dialogic communication theory and visual/creative research methods, and I have previously worked with action research approaches to radio content creation (Agerbaek, forthcoming 2016).

    I have gained my conference organizing experience at the Ørecomm Festivals 2011, 2013, and 2014, respectively through expo curation, workshop coordination, and panel chairing. I find it interesting to challenge conventional conference formats by creating more interactive spaces for discussions and idea to flourish. As participatory communication researchers, we walk the talk! In between the Ørecomm Festivals, I have worked with colleagues to host live-streamed seminars that integrate well with our different research and teaching activities. Along these lines, and especially when it comes to arranging PCR events beyond the IAMCR conference, I believe that we should make an effort to integrate such events with what we do as academics, also beyond publication. This would ensure motivation and make the collaborative vibe created in conference settings last longer.

    In addition to being a core participant in Ørecomm – Centre for Communication and Glocal Change, I am a member of soon-to-be Centre for Dialogic Communication at Roskilde University, and co-founder of Open Media Lab that works with knowledge communication and transdisciplinary collaboration.

    Nico Carpentier, Uppsala University, Sweden; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium; Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic

    My candidacy as Section Chair of PCR is grounded in the respect for what the previous Chairs and Vice-Chairs of this Section have achieved, in building and maintaining a vibrant academic community that is engaged in participatory research. I wish to become involved in the management of this Section to further strengthen it, and to expand its reach. At this point, I think there is a need to increase the number of Section officers, allowing the Section to become more active during the period outside the main conference (through publications and small regional events). We can and should make good use of the Section and Working Group Fund to (co-)finance these additional activities.

    As you might know, I am very committed to participatory research (see http://nicocarpentier.net for a series of open access publications on participation), to the PCR Section and to IAMCR. I have served as an IAMCR Section Chair before (of the Audience Section) and I will complete my four-year term as IAMCR Treasurer and Executive Board Member in July 2016. I have, in the past decade, enjoyed presenting my work at the PCR Section, amongst others, and have good knowledge of how the Section (and IAMCR as a whole) operate. But most importantly, I do think the study of participatory processes, at a global scale, still remains of the utmost importance, and that a number of considerable challenges require our attention. Important to me are the further development of participatory theory, transcontinental knowledge sharing on participatory practices and the achievement of a better understanding of the role of digital participation in relation with its communicative, political and social contexts. I’ll be happy to work with the Section on these themes, and on the other themes that the Section members deem important and wish to place on the agenda of our Section.

    Ana Duarte Melo, University of Minho, Portugal

    I present my candidacy for vice-chair of the PCR section of IAMCR based on the previous experience within the section and driven by my wish to contribute to the dynamics of this very “participative” and open-minded group of scholars with whom I’ve been learning so much.

    Currently I'm Chair of the Organisational and Strategic Communication Section of the ECREA but I'll step down next Fall, due to reaching the maximum of mandates. So I hope my experience might be of use.

    Furthermore I've been researching participatory communication (my PhD is on participation through advertising) and presenting several communications in the PCR section for the last 6 years (since Braga 2010). I’m also interested in strategic, health, non-profit communication and communication for social change, all areas that present a great potential for study and impactful outputs. Therefore I firmly believe participation is a keyword for the future of a sustainable communication and for a sustainable society as well.

    I am assistant professor at the Communication Sciences Department of the Social Sciences Institute of University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, and teach strategic and organisational communication, territory branding, advertising, creativity and scriptwriting and I am a researcher of the Communication, Organisations and Social Dynamics research group of the Communication and Society Research Centre of the same University. PhD in Communication Sciences (University of Minho, 2013); Master in Arts (in Sound and Image, specialized in Storytelling and Scriptwriting (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 2002); Graduation in Social Communication (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1986).

    Before fully committing to the Academia, I was advertising professional for 16 years having worked as copywriter and creative director and early in my carrier I was a journalist, having worked for press, radio and tv, both in Portugal and Macao (People's Republic of China). I was also a screen and scriptwriter for tv, advertising and cinema.

    See further info: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4598-7174

    Sumit Narula, Amity University, Madhya Pradesh

    Dr Sumit Narula is an Ph.D. in Electronic Media and Conflict Resolution from Panjab University, Chandigarh. He is presently working as Director/Head of Institution in Amity School of Communication Studies in Amity University, Madhya Pradesh. He has got three masters and two Post Graduate diplomas to his credit. He is presently doing his D.Litt./ Post Doctorate in Social and Peace Building with special reference to India. At present, there are three students pursuing doctorate under his guidance on topics ranging from Social Media, Advertising and Environmental Awareness and Studies.

    He has published four books on Mass Communication/Journalism and several national and international research papers in journals. He has also been to Dubai, Slovenia and Amsterdam for his research work and paper presentations. The core areas for his research are New Media/Convergence Media, Media Research Print Media, Electronic Media, etc.

    He is also as the elected Board Member ACS representing Asia since 2012. He is also the Member ISOC since 2011, Member EROGMAS since 2009 and Member ISA since 2010. He is also the invited Editor of the journal of the special issue entitled: “Advertising and Public Relations: Challenges and Implications” to be issued in August 2016 is organized by OMICS Group based in USA. He is also reviewer of AEJMC since 2010 and IAMCR since 2013.

    Elske van de Fliert, The University of Queensland, Australia

    This is to express my interest to stand for election for the position of Chair, Co-Chair or Vice-Chair of the Participatory Communication Research (PCR) Section of IAMCR.

    I am an Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Arts and Director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change at The University of Queensland, Australia.  My research interests cover the fields of participatory development communication and sustainable rural development.

    I have served for the past four years (2013-16) as Co-Vice-Chair of the PCR Section of the IAMCR. It has been a pleasure to work with a committed core group of Section members and vibrant research community, as well as to see the interest in the Section grow over the years. This growth has brought about a broader range of themes that are covered under Participatory Communication Research. The Section therefore needs to review its mission statement to better target future activities. When re-elected I will be actively consulting the membership to review and redefine the themes and boundaries of the PCR Section to make it more inclusive of newly emerging fields.