Chapter 1 CITAMS @30: Learning from the Past, Plotting a Course for the Future

Abstract

This chapter takes an empirically centered look at Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) as a section, both as an intellectual enterprise and as an organizational one to make recommendations about how CITAMS could expand is intellectual vibrancy and its organizational viability and capacity in the future. The chapter consists of three sections. The first uses membership data provided by the American Sociological Association (ASA) to discuss the intellectual development of the section. Here, the authors add to well-worn histories of the section with more recent data on section memberships and shifts in co-memberships before and after the transition from Communication and Information Technologies section of the ASA (CITASA) to CITAMS. Next, the authors draw on the annual reports submitted by the section chair to the ASA to discuss the organizational trajectory of the section, assessing ups and downs in membership and finance. The authors use the annual report data to introduce several section needs and make specific recommendations on how the section might further formalize CITAMS’s governance and ensure its viability. Finally, the authors synthesize their analysis and discuss how strategic, intellectual and organizational planning for the future could help develop and secure the section’s vitality for decades to come.