News

ECREA stands in solidarity with Georgia’s academic community in the face of increasing state violence against citizens, journalists, students, researchers and professors. The Georgian government’s actions—including detaining students advocating for democracy, repressing peaceful protests, and undermining university autonomy—are an unacceptable assault on academic freedom. We urge the Georgian government to respect the rights of students and academics, and we affirm our commitment to supporting Georgian scholars in their fight for justice and freedom.

ECREA Public Statement Committee

June 12-16, 2024

Denver, Colorado (USA)

Call for Abstracts – ECREA panel at ICA conference 2025

International Communication Association

ICA@75: Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research

Addressing ICA’s 75th anniversary, the 2025 conference theme is an invitation to critically reflect on communication studies as a discipline and ICA as an agent and site of disciplinary development. Theme sessions will take stock of our past, critically review present developments, and chart out future avenues for communication research. We particularly welcome contributions speaking to three important aspects of the theme: communication scholarship as a transformative and stabilizing force in society, as a research practice that can be both revolutionary and consolidating, and communication studies as a disrupted and resilient discipline. In all these contexts, elements of disruption and consolidation are not necessarily antithetical but may productively be framed as a dialectical relationship. More information: ICA 2025 - Theme - International Communication Association.

ECREA will host one panel at ICA 2025 and invites high quality submissions of panel proposals that are focused on timely and innovative topics and are diverse in terms of methodologies, theoretical standpoints and/or nationalities of the presenters. As ECREA’s mission is advancing European scholarship, we especially encourage panel proposals which include a European perspective and a comparative research focus. This call for panel proposals is open to ECREA members of all ECREA sections and to all topics.

Please note the following information:

Panel submissions. Panels provide a good forum for the discussion of new approaches, ongoing developments, innovative ideas, and debates in the field.  If you plan to submit a panel, please submit the following details: (a) Panel theme or title, (b) a 75-word description of the panel for the conference program, (c) a 400-word rationale, providing justification for the panel and the participating panelists, (d) 75-word abstract of each paper, (e) names of panel participants (usually 4-5 presenters, plus an optional designated respondent), and (f) name of panel chair/organizer. In terms of diversity, we expect a strong panel proposal to (a) include contributions of at least two different countries, (b) feature gender balance, and, ideally, (c) include not more than one contribution from a single faculty, department or school. Panel proposals need to be original and may not have been submitted to ICA before or at the same time. Panels consisting of personal on-site presentations are given priority. Please indicate in your submission if your panel consists of on-site presentations only or not. Accepted panel presentations do not count towards the max. allowed individual paper presentations at the ICA conference.

Registering panelists. All panelists must be ECREA members by the time the conference takes place and agree in advance of submission to participate as panel presenters and to register for the ICA conference. ICA provides a registration waiver only for the panel convener, not for the other panelists. Also ECREA does not cover any travel expenses.

How to submit?

Email to: info@ecrea.eu

Submission deadline is 10th of January 2025, 23:59 CET

In case of questions please contact: info@ecrea.eu

ECREA-ICA Conference Review Committee:

• Indrek Ibrus (Tallinn University)
  
• Dina Vozab (University of Zagreb)
  
• Malgorzata Winiarska-Brodowska (Jagiellonian University)
  

We are happy to invite you to participate in the ECREA Summer School  4 – 10 August at Södertörn University, Sweden.

The application deadline is 14 February, 2025, 23.59 CET.

The ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School is an opportunity for European doctoral students to present and develop their ongoing PhD projects and build valuable networks. It brings together members of the European research community to explore contemporary issues within media and communication studies within a supportive social setting. Our main aim is to provide you with support, insights, and guidance through a variety of activities, including individual feedback seminars with leading media and communication scholars.

Doctoral students with limited economic means can apply for an ECREA grant to cover the participation fee and travel expenses.

Full call can be found HERE.

ECREA decided to establish Task force for reviewing organisational structure of ECREA. The goal of this Task force will be to consult with the ECREA entities (their management teams) about the possible future structure of our association that would enable maintaining unity, continuity as well as innovation and flexiblity at the same time. 

If you are interested in joining the Task Force, please send your expression of interest to info@ecrea.eu by December 10, 2025.

We are happy to inform you that there is a team applying for the new Mediatization Section management team:

• Katalin FEHER - Co-Chair
• Tomasz GACKOWSKI - Co-Chair
• Bieke ZAMAN - Vice Chair
• Marlena SZTYBER-POPKO - Vice Chair
• Xiaoxian WANG - Vice Chair
• Priscilla Van EVEN - Vice Chair
• Ma ZHUORAN - Communication Officer

You can check their CVs and statements here: S/N/TWG additional election.

The election will take place online between January 6-10, 2025. Members of the Section will receive the link with all the instructions before the election.

As approved by General Assembly in June 2024, the membership fees will change from the beginning of the 2025. See the new structure of the fees here (and see the list of "Low income" and "Middle income" countries here).

ECREA Governing Body (Executive Board) decided to offer to current members and to the new members a possibility of pre-payment of the 2025 membership with the current fees:

• All members can pre-pay the 2025 membership fee with the current (old) fee amount until 15 December 2024 (via the website or by contacting info@ecrea.eu).
  
• Members can also choose to pre-pay the 2025 or both 2025 and 2026 with the new fees anytime, availing of the two-year renewal option (by contacting info@ecrea.eu). *Please note the two-year renewal option is only possible with the new fee amount.*
  
• After 15 December 2024 (from 16 December 2024 on) members will be allowed to pre-pay/renew with the new fees only. They can also wait until they will be reminded by ECREA to renew in January / February 2025, and pay the new fees then.
  

If you have any questions or comments, please, get in touch with ECREA Admin at info@ecrea.eu.

Due to the fact that the management team of Mediatization Section was not selected during the section's business meeting at the ECC in Slovenia in September 2024 we are organizing the online elections. Hereby we are launching the call for candidates for Mediatization Section Management Team. Candidates have to be current members of ECREA. If you wish to stand for election please email me at sections@ecrea.eu (with info@ecrea.eu in cc) with a short biography and position statement not later than Nov 28, 2024. Late applications will not be accepted.

ECREA is pleased to announce that new Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups Representatives were elected during the second stage of ECREA Executive Board (Governing body) elections.

New Sections Representatives are:

• Jelena Kleut - University of Novi Sad (Serbia)
  
• Catalina Iordache - Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)
  

New Networks Representative is:

• Dina Vozab - University of Zagreb (Croatia)
  

New Temporary Working Groups Representative is:

• Maarit Jaakkola - Nordicom
  

Elections of ECREA Executive Board (Governing Body) take place in two stages. During the first stage, ECREA members elected up new members of ECREA Executive Board (Governing Body). In the second stage, the call for representatives of Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups was organised. The candidates came from management teams of Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups and were elected by members of respective management teams. Sections can elect up to two representatives, while Networks and Temporary Working Groups can elect one representative. 

The election took place online on November 6-8, 2024. Each member of a Management Team of a S/N/TWG held one vote for the election.

Elections of ECREA Executive Board (Governing Body) take place in two stages. During the first stage, ECREA members elected up new members of ECREA Executive Board (Governing Body). In the second stage, the call for representatives of Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups was organised. The candidates come from management teams of Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups and are elected by members of respective management teams. Sections can elect up to two representatives, while Networks and Temporary Working Groups can elect one representative. 

The election will take place online on November 6-8, 2024. Each member of a Management Team of a S/N/TWG holds one vote for this election.

The results will be approved by General Assembly.

List of candidates (in alphabetical order) can be found here.

ECREA is pleased to announce that the 11th European Communication Conference (ECC) will be held in September 2026 in Brno, Czech Republic, hosted by Masaryk University as the local organizing partner.

Watch this amazing video to discover more about this vibrant city: https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=423290077206260