International Association For Media And Communication Research Research Articles

Preface

The Dossier entitled “(Audio)Visions: photography, cinema and memory” is edited by Thomas Wiedemann on behalf of the Visual Culture Working Group (VIC) of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Within IAMCR, VIC focuses on artistic, cultural, socio-cultural and technological studies in visual media and communication—pictures and photography, respectively, but also cinema, audiovisuals and arts—from a critical view point that might enhance the international field of communication studies. In this spirit, after the IAMCR Conference 2019 held in Madrid, Spain, the idea arose to publish some of the research papers by members of the working group that dealt with the themes of the dossier.

Introduction: Communication Rights in the Digital Age

Introduction: Communication Rights in the Digital Age

PARTICIPATION, DEMOCRACY, AND CREATING A RADICAL PROGRESSIVE UTOPIA FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: AN INTERVIEW WITH NICO CARPENTIER

NICO CARPENTIER is a renowned researcher in the field of communication and media studies. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Media Studies of Charles University in Prague, with two additional part-time positions, at the Communication Sciences Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and at Uppsala University, along with his research fellowships at Loughborough University and Cyprus University of Technology. He was one of the four founding board members of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) in 2005, the ECREA vice-president from 2008 to 2012, the treasurer of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) from 2012 to 2016, and the chair of IAMCR’s Participatory Communication Research Section from 2016 till the day. His latest books include; The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation (2017); Cyprus and its Conflicts. Representations, Materialities, and Cultures (2018, co-edited), Critical Perspectives on Media, Power and Change (2018, co-edited), Respublika! Experiments in the Performance of Participation and Democracy (2019, edited), Communication and Discourse Theory (2019, co-edited) and Communication as the Intersection of the Old and the New (2019, coedited).

Cold War, Press Freedom and Journalism Education: Paradoxes of the Untypical 1968 IAMCR Conference in Pamplona

In the context of the Cold War that affected the first steps of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), journalism education was the topic dealt by attendees from West and East Europe during the 1968 conference in Pamplona, Spain. Paradoxically professors from communist countries spoke openly in an event partly sponsored by Spain's anti-communist regime. Indirectly, the lack of press freedom in the late dictatorship caused some incidents due to some Spanish professors’ critical speeches. Beyond these controversies related to domestic issues, depoliticisation—in accordance with the original spirit of IAMCR—became a key strategy for the conference success as a whole. The election of Pamplona, located in a non-aligned country, as the conference's venue meant a break in the struggle to gain power and influence within the organisation. This story, based on unpublished documents from the University of Navarra's School of Communication, sheds light on several intertwined issues such as international academic cooperation beyond the post World War II East–West confrontation, and press liberalisation in authoritarian regimes through journalism education. It is also a contribution for a more accurate knowledge of the life of IAMCR as a worldwide organisation in the field of communication research.

Communication and internet policy: a critical rights-based history and future

This special issue of Internet Policy Review brings together a hand-picked selection of articles presented in the Communication Policy and Technology (CPT) section at the annual conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Eugene, Oregon (USA), 2018. With different theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and geographical scope, the five papers in this issue address how ideal-type rights and values are translated into highly variable rules, regulations, policies and practices in different countries and regions around the world. Drawing from their respective case studies, the papers examine a number of consequences of this gap for internet users, as citizens and consumers. Building on these papers, the editorial discusses some recent evolutions of the internet policy field, and introduces the critical and ‘engaged scholarship’ approach that IAMCR and its CPT section have displayed over the years in their analyses of communication and internet policy.

The state of strategic organizational crisis communication research in the context of global and digital communication

Since the mid 1990s the field of crisis communication research has grown substantially as a topic of international communication studies. Especially in public relations journals a growth of the publication output has been observed recently, whereas broader communication journals still publish scarcely on crisis communication (An & Cheng, 2012; Ha & Boynton, 2014). The increasing number of conferences and specialized working groups at major academic communication associations such as the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) as well as the publication of specialized journals such as the Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication indicate the ongoing institutionalization of the field (Schwarz, Seeger, & Auer, 2016a). Moreover, an increasing number of academic and public research centers, primarily at American and European universities, point to the rapid growth and societal relevance of the field (Palenchar, 2010). Within the field of public relations and strategic communication research the management of crisis communication already counts as a vital sub-discipline (Coombs, 2012b). This gain in importance can also be explained by the numerous devastating crisis events which do not only have tremendous social, political, ecological, and economic impact, but also reveal in many cases the complexity and limitations of managing crisis communication as practiced by organizations in various fields of society. This complexity and scope of crises go along with the interdisciplinarity and multiperspectivity of the research field, which in most cases lacks reciprocal reference (Coombs, 2012a; Loffelholz & Schwarz, 2008).

Repensar la comunicación para el desarrollo

El siguiente texto es la transcripción de la intervención de la profesora Venu Arora en la conferencia de la Asociación International para la Investigación en Medios y Comunicación (IAMCR, por sus siglas en inglés), que tuvo lugar en Hyderabad (India) en 2014. Como directora ejecutiva de Ideosync Media Combine, una iniciativa que integra metodologías comunicativas en pro del cambio social, expone brevemente dos experiencias ejemplares de comunicación para el cambio social, mientras que discute cuestiones críticas alrededor de la práctica de la Comunicación para el desarrollo e ideas acerca de la voz y la justicia social.

Professor Janet Wasko: An Interview with the President of the IAMCR and one of the Key Representatives of the Political Economy of Communication Approach

This paper presents an interview with Janet Wasko. She is a Professor and Knight Chair in Communication Research at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and widely considered as one of the key authors working in the tradition of the political economy of communication. Currently she is serving as the President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), one of the key international associations in the field of media and communication studies. She previously held several other positions in the IAMCR and served as the head of the Political Economy-section, which she also helped to establish. Professor Wasko published several influential books on the film industry, especially on Hollywood and the Disney Corporation. We talked especially about the influences on her approach, about her position in the IAMCR, her understanding of how the cultural and media industries work, the political economy approach in media and communication studies, and issues related to the film industry, which she mostly tackles in her own research.

Professor Janet Wasko: An Interview with the President of the IAMCR and one of the Key Representatives of the Political Economy of Communication Approach

This paper presents an interview with Janet Wasko. She is a Professor and Knight Chair in Communication Research at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and widely considered as one of the key authors working in the tradition of the political economy of communication. Currently she is serving as the President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), one of the key international associations in the field of media and communication studies. She previously held several other positions in the IAMCR and served as the head of the Political Economy-section, which she also helped to establish. Professor Wasko published several influential books on the film industry, especially on Hollywood and the Disney Corporation. We talked especially about the influences on her approach, about her position in the IAMCR, her understanding of how the cultural and media industries work, the political economy approach in media and communication studies, and issues related to the film industry, which she mostly tackles in her own research.

Mapping the WSIS + 10 Review Process: Research Report on the 10-year Review Process of the World Summit on the Information Society

This paper is a report on the WSIS 10 mapping project, which was funded by the IAMCR Rapid Response Research Grant on Communication Policy by the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) with the support of the Media Program of the Open Society Foundations (OSF). The project aimed at mapping the events taking place in the framework of the 10-years review process or the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS 10), the actors involved and their concrete contributions, with a particular focus on the role of expert contributions. The report was presented at the annual IAMCR conference in India in July 2014.

The problem of internationalizing media and communication research

IAMCR (International Association for Media and Communication Research) is celebrating its 50th Anniversary in July 2007. I write in my personal capacity as President of IAMCR, 2004-2008.