Speakers

Nico Carpentier is Extraordinary Professor at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) and President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (2020-2023). He is also a Research Fellow at Loughborough University. His theoretical focus is on discourse theory, his research is situated in the relationship between communication, politics and culture, especially towards social domains as war & conflict, ideology, participation and democracy. His latest monographs are The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation (2017, Peter Lang, New York) and Iconoclastic Controversies: A Photographic Inquiry into Antagonistic Nationalism (2021, Intellect, Bristol).

Keynote A future for critical communication studies: Moving away from (social) media-centrisms and new technological determinisms

This talk tries to carefully sketch out future trajectories for communication (and media) studies, moving away from a too explicit focus on social media, and the technological determinisms it has returned to us. This de centring, critical and self-reflexive move can also inspire us–very much in line with the work that Kaarle Nordenstreng has performed for decades–to put academic normativity and criticality more firmly on our global agendas, in always distinct and translocalised ways.

Ulla Carlsson is professor in media and communication research at the University of Gothenburg, and was for many years Director of NORDICOM (Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research). She also established the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media. Professor Carlsson appointed UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression, Media Development and Global Policy in 2015. She has published several publications in this field and even other fields.  Professor Carlsson has been a member of the board of many international research organizations such as IAMCR International Council, committees and journals.

Dr. Cees J. Hamelink is Emeritus Professor of International Communication at the University of Amsterdam. He is currently Athena professor of Human Rights and Public Health at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. He is Honorary President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and author of 20 monographs on communication, culture, and human rights. His latest books are Media and Conflict (2011), Global Communication (SAGE, 2015) and Communication and Peace (Palgrave, 2020). Forthcoming with Polity Press is Communication and Human Rights. Cees Hamelink is also a jazz musician and produced several CD albums.

Epp Lauk is Professor at the Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania), Guest Professor at Tartu University (Estonia) and Emerita Professor at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). Her research interests are in media democratization and media systems transformation, as well as a broad spectrum of questions related to journalism change and professionalization. She has a rich international teaching and research experience. Currently she is working as one of the leading scholars in the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project MEDIADELCOM on deliberative communication.

Claudia Padovani is Associate Professor Political Science and International Relations at the Department of Politics, Law and International Studies (SPGI) of the University of Padova, Italy, where she teaches courses in Communication Governance, Communication Practices Diversity and Inclusion. Her main areas of interest concern global political transformations, with a special focus on the governance of communication and, in that context, on gender in/equality issues, communication rights and social justice. Her publications cross disciplinary fields, merging media and communication with gender-aware political analysis, in an attempt to engender the fields of media policy and communication governance.

She sits in the International Council of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), where she also chairs  the Working Group on Global Media Policy and is a member of the Task Force on the Global Alliance for Media and Gender. Claudia is one of the co-editors of the IAMCR/Palgrave series “Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research”.

Daya Thussu is Professor of International Communication at School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2018-2019, he was a visiting Distinguished Professor and Inaugural Disney Chair in Global Media at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, Beijing. For many years he was Professor of International Communication at the University of Westminster in London, where he was also founder and Co-Director of India Media Centre and research advisor to the China Media Centre. Author or editor of 20 books, latest being a co-edited collection BRICS Media: Reshaping the Global Communication Order? Among his other main publications are: International Communication – Continuity and Change, third edition; China’s Media Go Global (co-edited); Electronic Empires; Media on the Move – Global Flow and Contra-flow; News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment; Internationalizing Media Studies; Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives (co-edited); Communicating India’s Soft Power: Buddha to Bollywood and Mapping BRICS Media (co-edited). He is currently writing a book to be titled Changing Geopolitics of Global Communication. Professor Thussu is the Founder and Managing Editor of the Sage journal Global Media and Communication. He is also series editor for two Routledge book series – Internationalizing Media Studies and Routledge Advances in Internationalizing Media Studies.

Muniz Sodré, journalist and sociologist, is an Emeritus Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Professor Sodré’s work primarily focuses on the areas of communication and culture. He has published more than 30 books in these fields, including the renowned O Império do Grotesco (2002) and Antropológica do Espelho (2002). Professor Sodré also exercised as the President of the National Library Foundation of Brazil from 2005 to 2011.

Yuezhi Zhao is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Economy of Global Communication at the Simon Fraser University, School of Communication Studies. Professor Zhao’s research focuses on the political economy and cultural politics of China’s rapidly transforming communication system.

Elena Vartanova is Full Professor, Dean and Chair in Media Theory and Economics at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her current research interests are in the Russian media system, media economics, media theory, and journalism in Russia. Academician of the Russian Academy of Education. President of the Russian National Association of Media Researchers (NAMMI). Member of IAMCR, ICA, ECREA, EMMA and Euromedia Research Group. Chair of Digital Divide working group at IAMCR in 1998-2013. Board Member of IMMAA. Editor in chief of “World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies

Janet Wasko is Professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, USA. She studies the political economy of media/communication and the environment, media theory, and international communication. She is author or editor of twenty-three books, and served as Philip H. Knight Chair in Communication Research and President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Wasko is a recipient of the C. Edwin Baker Award for the Advancement of Scholarship on Media, Markets and Democracy, as well as the founder and co-director of the What is…? Series at the University of Oregon.

Taisto Hujanen is Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research interests include public service broadcasting, digitalization of broadcasting and the generic history of broadcast journalism. He has been involved with IAMCR at multiple different career phases through the IAMCR conferences and through coordinating work groups in his area of expertise.

Anna Rantasila is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences at Tampere University, Finland. Dr. Rantasila is the President of the Finnish Association for Media and Communication Studies, Mevi. She is currently working on a project on moderation of online news comments and emotions. Her research interests include the role of affect and emotion in social media and news media, crisis journalism, and media technologies. She is also interested in ethics and affordances of ICTs.