François Heinderyckx is professor and director of the Department of Information and Communication Sciences of Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he teaches media sociology and political communication.

His research interests include journalism and news media, with a particular emphasis on science and the media and digital media. He contributes to projects related to e-government and media education.

He also develops research around the notion of Quality in communication research and is heading a working group along with other learned societies to reflect on this issue. Jointly with ICA and IAMCR, he led ECREA into organizing a large survey among communication scholars to investigate their use and perception of academic journals.

He is a member of the Conseil Supérieur de l’éducation aux médias (CSEM, Belgium) and of the Media Literacy Expert Group (European Commission). He is correspondant for international affairs of the Board of the Institut des Sciences de la Communication du CNRS (ISCC, France). He is member of the Editorial Board of Hermès (CNRS), member of the scientific council of Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Lille (ESJ) and Senior Fellow of Communication for Sustainable Social Change (U of Massachusetts, Amherst).

Nico Carpentier (PhD) is an assistant professor working at the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB - Free University of Brussels). He is co-director of the VUB research centre CEMESO.

His theoretical focus is on discourse theory, his research interests are situated in the relationship between media, journalism, politics and culture, especially towards social domains as war & conflict, ideology, participation and democracy.

His recent publications include the following books: Reclaiming the media: communication rights and democratic media roles (ed.)(2007); Culture, Trauma & Conflict. Cultural studies perspectives on contemporary war (ed.)(2007); Alternatives on media content journalism, and regulation. The grassroots discussion panels at the 2007 ICA Conference (ed.)(2007); Understanding Alternative media (co-authored with Olga Bailey and Bart Cammaerts) (2007); Media technologies and democracy in an enlarged Europe (ed.)(2007); Participation and media production. Critical reflections on content creation (ed.)(2008); Discourse Theory and Cultural Analysis. Media, Arts and Literature (ed.)(2008); and Democracy, journalism and technology (ed)(2008).

Tamara Witschge (PhD) is a lecturer at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. She obtained her PhD degree from the Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam in May 2007.

Tamara's main research interests are media and democracy, changes in the journalistic field, equality and diversity in the public sphere, and the public debate on immigration. Her PhD thesis '(In)difference Online' focused on online discussions of contested issues. From 2007-2009 she was a research associate at the Media and Communications Department and worked on the Leverhulme Trust funded project 'Spaces of News'. This project aimed to explore the ways in which technological, economic and social change is reconfiguring news journalism and shaping the dynamics of the public sphere and public culture.

Tamara is the General Secretary of ECREA (since 2008). She was one of the main organizers of the First European Communication Conference (ECC), held in November 2005 in Amsterdam and is part of ECC's organizing committee (Barcelona and Hamburg). She was the Secretary of the Board of ECREA (2007-2008) and the chair of the Young Scholars Network of ECREA (yecrea.eu) from 2008-2009. She is a member of the editorial board of the international journal New Media and Society, as well as of PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication.

Aukse Balcytiene is Professor at the Department of Public Communications at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lituania, where she is working since 1997 has been working first as a lecturer, and from 1998 to 2006 as Head of the Department of Journalism, School of Political Science and Diplomacy. In 2006 she took the administrative position of the University secretary with responsibilities in strategic planning and coordination of public and international affairs.

Associate Professor since 1998; Professor since 2009; Field of research – media and communication studies. Research interests focus on comparative aspects in studying political communication and journalism cultures, media system change, the development of European public sphere, information and communication policies as well as multicultural and multilingual journalism online. She has extensive experience in project management, administration and coordination and has been actively involved in a number of international projects.

She is also an editorial board member of a number of scientific periodicals. She has published two monographs (most recent – Mass Media and Journalism in Lithuania: Changes, Development and Journalism Culture. Berlin: Vistas, 2006) and over 70 articles.

Divina Frau-Meigs is professor of American studies and media sociology at the Université Paris 3-Sorbonne, France. With degrees from the Sorbonne University, Stanford University and the Annenberg School for Communications (University of Pennsylvania), she is a specialist of media and information technologies in English-speaking countries, in a comparative perspective. She is also a research associate with CNRS. Her other activities include being editor-in-chief of Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines (RFEA) and a member of the editorial board of MédiaMorphoses (INA-Colin).

She has published extensively in the areas of media content (Les Ecrans de la Violence, Economica, 1997; Jeunes, Médias, Violences, Economica, 2003), information and journalism (Qui a détourné le 11 septembre? Journalisme, information et démocratie, DeBoeck, 2006) the technologies and sub-cultures of the screen (Médias et Technologie: l’exemple des Etats-Unis, Ellipses, 2001) and the relationship between media and technologies (Le crime organisé à la ville et à l’écran, 1929-1951, Armand Colin, 2001; Médiamorphoses américaines, Economica, 2001).

She has served as vice-president for international affairs on the boards of Société Française des Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication (SFSIC) and has been vice-president of the International Association for Media and Communications Research (IAMCR), as well as a founding member of ECCR.

Maren Hartmann (PhD) is an assistant professor for media sociology at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin.

Her research interests include the appropriation of media and technologies (especially in terms of the domestication framework), new media cultures, mobile media, media in urban spaces and questions of mediatisation as well as media literacy.

Her publications include 'Technologies and utopias: the cyberflâneur and the experience of being online' (2004), 'After the Mobile Phone? Social Changes and the Development of Mobile Communication' (co-edited with Patrick Rössler and Joachim Höflich, 2008), 'Mobile Communication in Everyday Life. Ethnographic Observations, Views & Reflections' (co-edited with Joachim Höflich, 2006) and 'Domestication of Media and Technology' (co-ediated with Thomas Berker, Yves Punie and Katie Ward, 2006).

Until the ECREA 2008 conference in Barcelona, she was the Chair of ECREA's Digital Culture and Communication section. At the moment she is still the co-chair of the Media Sociology section of the German Communication Association (DGPuK).

Trained as a social psychologist, Prof. Uwe Hasebrink completed his Ph.D. in 1986 at the University of Hamburg. Since 1986 he is working as a researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media research, since 1988 as the Executive manager, since 1998 as the Director.

The Hans Bredow Institute is an independent non-profit research organisation working on all aspects of current media developments, in particular media systems, media economy, media use and media effects.

Since 2001, Uwe Hasebrink also holds the position of a professor for Empirical Communication Research at the University of Hamburg.

Hasebrink's main research interests and publications have been in the following areas: Individual patterns of media use, development of media use in Europe, the need for and the feasibility of a European Educational Television, programme quality and the public service function of broadcasting.

He has worked on several comparative projects on the European level. From 1997 until 2001 he was member of the Facilitators Group to the EBU Strategic Information Service; 1998 until 2003 he was the head of the reception analysis section of the German Association for Communication Research.

Pertti Hurme is a communication researcher and teacher, now working as Professor of Organizational Communication and PR at the Department of Communication, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He also serves as the Head of the Department of Communication.

His current research interests focus on communication in networked organizations and the use and meaning of communication technologies in organizations. Recent articles deal with PR and the Internet, network organizations, mobile communication and work practices, and organizations in virtual worlds. In 2005 he published the book Viestinnästä tietoon: tiedon luominen työyhteisössä (From Communication to Knowledge: Creation of Knowledge in Work Communities) with co-authors Maija-Leena Huotari and Tarja Valkonen.

He is Past President of the European Communication Association (2003-2005) and Past Vice President of ECREA (2005-2008).

Alenka Jelen, MSc, is a lecturer of communication theory, public affairs, rhetoric and public relations and the course leader of the international joint MSc programme at the Lancashire Business School, University of Central Lancashire. She is also a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana.

Her current research interest is in political and communication studies with a special focus on the role of political sources in media news construction process, and qualitative research methods, particularly expert interviews and framing analysis.

Prior to joining the University of Central Lancashire in August 2008, she had been working as a public relaitons adviser and teaching assisstant at the University of Ljubljana. Besides public relations, she has rich experience in media practice, where she has been working as a journalist, radio news director, overseas correspondent, television host, and ad copywriter.

In 2005, she received EUPRERA’s (The European Public Relations Education and Research Association) Jos Willems Award for best BA dissertation International Comparison of Communication Study Programmes in the Field of Communication Studies.

She is the Vice Chair of YECREA, ECREA's young scholars network, and represents YECREA on the Executive Board since October 2009.

Salvatore Scifo is a Lecturer at the European Union Institute, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey. A former Lecturer in Community Media at the Department of Applied Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University, he is a Ph.D candidate at the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster, where is researching on the development of the community radio sector in the United Kingdom in the period 1997-2007.

Salvatore is also a Board Member of the UK-based Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA), the Secretary of the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) and Deputy Chair of the Radio Studies Network.

He has edited a special issue of Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (March 2008) on Community Radio and contributed to The Alternative Media Handbook (Routledge, 2007) with a chapter on Student Media. Most recently, he also co-edited a special issue of Telematics&Informatics (Elsevier) with Nico Carpentier on ‘Community Radio: Broadcasting on the edge’ (2010, forthcoming).

Sinikka Torkkola (Phd) is a researcher at the Journalism Research and Development Centre based at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Tampere. She is working at the project Equality, journalism and career development among female Finnish journalists.

Previously, her research has focused on health communication and health journalism. She has training as a nurse, too. Her dissertation (in Finnish, 2008) is published by the name ‘Sick Story: A Research on the Theory of Health Journalism and the Newspaper Hospital’.

She has been editor in chief of The Finnish Journal of Communication and Media Research (Tiedotustutkimus) in 2007-2008. She has been actively involved in The Nordic Conferences for Media and Communication research. She is a president of Tampere University Association of Researchers and Teachers and a board member of the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers. More information about her publications and other activities can be found on her homepage http://www.uta.fi/~tisito/english.html.