News

In consultation with the Local Organising Committee, the ECREA Executive Board has approved new dates for the 8th European Communication Conference: 6-9 September 2021.

The conference was scheduled for 2-5 October 2020 but we had to make the uneasy decision to postpone. The different timelines and strategies of gradual withdrawal of pandemic prevention measures adopted by individual European countries have made it impossible to organise the event according to our standards of academic quality and hospitality.

Planning of the postponed event will protect all the work already done in the creation of the conference's scientific programme. The review process has been concluded and the acceptance of papers and panels remains in place for the postponed conference. Over the next months, the organization department will contact all authors to confirm the approved status of previous submissions. The conference calendar will be revised and new important dates will be announced on the conference website.

We are working to prepare a safe and rewarding conference for all participants. Conferences should be exceptional moments for greater integration into our rich and diverse field for scholars of all ages, groups and research interests.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Braga from the 6th to the 9th of September 2021.

Ilija Tomanic Trivundza, ECREA President

Helena Sousa, General Coordinator of Local Organising Committee

https://www.ecrea2020braga.eu/

With this public statement ECREA seeks to express its full solidarity with the global human rights movement #BlackLivesMatter. The movement gained momentum after the horrific police killing of George Floyd on May 25 2020 and has spread globally.

As human beings we act in solidarity with those subject to police violence and those who are the victims of racist acts.

As Europeans we recognise a particular urgency to challenge systemic racism caused by the linkages between colonial, imperialist and supremacist legacies.

As communication and media scholars, we should consider how to leverage our institutional power and how to transform our practices within Higher Education to foster inclusive and diverse communities.

Colonialism, imperialism and ethno-nationalism have left their imprint on our field and with varying degrees on Higher Education generally in Europe. There is a particular urgency to account for how colonial and racist lineages shape contemporary constellations of media and communication, for example in discussions on migration and nationalism. This is a call to all academic institutions to face this legacy.

We recognize that a transformation of academia is necessary. This process of change and self-education can only be dialogic. For this purpose, we can build upon the work conducted on race, discrimination and communication by early career and established ECREA members. We also invite all of our members to share their suggestions and ideas on the topic with the Executive Board, Section, TWG and Network management teams, or the Public Statement Committee.

ECREA Executive Board and the Local Organising Committee have announced the postponement of the 8th European Communication Conference to 2021. Please, see video announcement on the Conference website.

Formal Announcement

Dear ECC 2020 conference applicants, dear ECREA members,

We would like to inform you that in consultation with Local Organising Committee, the ECREA Executive Board has made an uneasy decision to postpone the 8th European Communication Conference, which was scheduled for 2-5 October 2020.

The different timelines and strategies of gradual withdrawal of pandemic prevention measures adopted by individual European countries have made it impossible to organise the event according to our standards of academic quality and hospitality.

It might well be the case that the traveling restrictions and social distancing measures will not be in place in October, but the organisation of and participation at the event of such scale is not possible with so many variables beyond our control.

The conference is not cancelled but postponed to 2021. ECREA and Local Organising Committee are looking for viable alternative timing of the conference in 2021 and we will announce the new dates at the latest by the end of October this year.

In planning of the postponed event, we will protect the work already done for creation of the scientific programme of the conference. The review process has been concluded and the acceptance of papers and panels remains in place for the postponed conference. The details of the registration process (e.g. potential updating of abstracts, fee payments etc.) will be announced along with the new conference dates.

When deciding to postpone the conference, we considered various alternative formats, but we opted for a physical conference as a way of renewing the bonds that bring together a scholarly community that are difficult to achieve through various online tools and virtual conferences. Both the Executive Board and Local Organising Committee strongly believe that ECC conferences are more than merely occasions for presentation of research findings. They have always served as community-building events, as opportunities for greater integration into our rich and diverse field for scholars of all ages, groups and research interests. This mission of social nearing is simply unachievable under conditions of social distancing.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Braga in 2021.

Ilija Tomanic Trivundza, ECREA President
Helena Sousa, General Coordinator of Local Organising Committee

ECREA regular General Assembly 2020 that took place in 25 - 29 May has closed. 162 voters (30% out of 540) participated in the online meeting and vote. Individual members and institutional coordinators were entitled to vote, each individual member had one vote and each coordinator of an institutional member held five votes.

The General Assembly confirmed the Executive Board report for 2019 and budget (284 votes in favor,  6 against and 16 abstained) and approved Minutes of the previous regular General Assembly (282 votes in favor, 5 against and 19 abstained). 

The General Assembly also confirmed the prolongation of the mandate of the existing ECREA Executive Board in case 8th ECC conference scheduled for 2-5 October 2020 is postponed (294 votes in favor, 10 against and 2 abstained). Decision on potential postponement of the ECC 2020 Braga conference will be made in the first week of June.

After series of consultations with local organiser, ECREA made a tedious decision to postpone the Summer School 2020 for early 2021. The event is not cancelled, it is postponed to the beginnig of the next year.

Series of online consultations will be provided to the selected participants in the period for which the summer school 2020 was originally intended.

ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School will take place will take place at the University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, from 10-19 January 2021.

ECREA’s Executive Board and the Local Organizing Committee of the 2020 ECC in Braga are closely monitoring the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic as we are concerned about the health and well-being of our members and conference attendees.

The conference dates (2-5 October, 2020) remain unchanged at the present time but we wish to announce changes to the deadline for the acceptance of invitations and the registration period to take account of this period of uncertainty and give more time to make decisions about attendance.

The new deadline for accepted proposals confirmation of attendance is June 15 2020. Registration will open on the same day and the early bird registration will be correspondingly extended.

To reiterate, our intention at present is to go ahead with the physical conference in October but we will review this on an ongoing basis as well as engaging in contingency planning. We are not contemplating a virtual conference as an alternative to the physical conference.

Please take care of yourself, your family and your loved ones. Further updates will follow in due course.

The 2020 ordinary General Assembly of ECREA will open on Monday 25 May (6:45 CEST) and will close on Friday 29 May (23:45 CEST) 2020. We invite all the members, who are eligible to vote, to participate and cast their votes online.

The Assembly deals with a number of important issues, such as Approval of ECREA Executive Board Report for 2019 and the Budget Plan for 2020.

WHO CAN VOTE

Please note that only individual members and institutional coordinators are entitled to vote. If you are a member through an institution, you do not have the right to vote but need to communicate to your institutional coordinator. If you do not know who your institutional coordinator is, please ask ECREA’s Administrator at info@ecrea.eu. In line with ECREA Statutes, each individual member has one vote and each coordinator of an institutional member holds five votes.

All members, who are eligible to vote will receive a separate email with voting credentials and a link to dedicated online area when the General Assembly opens on 25 May 2020.

ECREA is happy to announce a new promotional leaflet. The main goal is to invite new scholars and students to become ECREA members. It can be distributed at conferences, workshops, and different academic meetings. Feel free to spread it.

You can download the leaflet here: EcreaLeaflet_WEB.pdf

ECREA announced new cooperation with European Journal of Communication (EJC) and the European Journal of Cultural Studies (EJCS). The grant to attend ECC 2020 will be provided by EJC and the Prize for the Best Paper will be awarded by EJCS to ECREA young scholars in connection with ECC 2020 in Braga. Both journals will offer publication opportunities to the grant and prize holders! The deadline for EJC Grant Application has been updated to 3 July 2020.

The European Journal of Communication Young ECREAN Conference Grant

European Journal of Communication (EJC) and ECREA invite Ph.D. candidates who are members of ECREA to apply for the EJC-funded grant supporting the PhD candidate´s attendance at the 8th European Communication Conference in Braga, 2-5 October 2020. The applicant must have a paper proposal accepted for ECC 2020. The grant will be awarded to the applicant with the best accepted paper proposal. The amount of the grant is 1500 EUR. It covers conference fee, travel and accommodation costs and daily allowance and it is meant to support excellent Ph.D. candidates with limited opportunities to participate in international academic events. The grant will be judged by Christina Holtz Bacha, Malgorzata Winiarska Brodowska and Irena Reifová in collaboration with the editors of the EJC. The grant holder will be invited by the European Journal of Communication to develop the paper proposal into a full paper, which will be considered for publication in the European Journal of Communication (though with no guarantees of publication).

The Ph.D. candidates who want to apply for the EJC-funded grant are invited to submit the following documents:

• Short application letter explaining motivation to participate at ECC 2020 (150 words max.)
• Copy of paper proposal which was submitted and accepted for ECC 2020
• Curriculum vitae
• Letter of reference from supervisor or mentor

The deadline of the applications is 17 April, 2020 3 July 2020. All the requested documents must be submitted in PDF format to the email: info@ecrea.eu.

More information on the EJCS Prize are here.

The ECREA Young Scholars Network (YECREA) and ECREA as well as Local organisers of the conference are closely monitoring the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of preventive measures across Europe. The intention of the organisers at present is to go ahead with the physical conference in October but they will review this on an ongoing basis. They will continue to inform members and participants in case of any changes to plans.

The ECREA Young Scholars Network (YECREA) and ECREA invite applications for:

• 12 ECC 2020 grants for young scholars who are ECREA PhD members and are accepted to present at ECC;
•  At least 4 out of the 12 grants will go to soft-currency ECREA PhD members;
• Grant for regular ECREA PhD members: conference fee waiver + €250 travel/accommodation;
• Grant for soft-currency ECREA PhD members: conference fee waiver + €350 travel/accommodation;
• Deadline for application: 15th of May 2020.

The grants are intended for YECREA members (visit yecrea.eu/membership to learn how to become a YECREA member) in order to support access to the academic community of media and communication scholars by attending ECREA’s biannual conference from 2nd to 5th October 2020 in Braga, Portugal. The ECC 2020 grants include the waiver of the conference fee and partial reimbursement for costs of travel and accommodation.

Grant awards will be made based on several criteria, of which the most important is the applicants’ access to financial resources (e.g. from your home university, third-party funded projects or national funding institutions). The grants will be awarded only to young scholars whose presentation has been accepted to the programme of the conference. The applications will not be reviewed in terms of academic quality. However, applicants should preferably submit abstracts as first authors to the ECC conference programme.

The grants will be provided on the basis of reimbursement. The relevant claim form, digitalized invoices and receipts documenting actual costs must be submitted electronically to treasurer@ecrea.eu in addition to the submission of the original documents posted to the ECREA accountants: RSM Belgium, Lozenberg, 22 b3, B1932 Zaventem, Belgium. The applicant will be reimbursed up to the amount of the subsidy that was granted to the particular applicant.

Application & Timeline ECC Grants 2020

Applicants are expected to complete and submit the following Application Form: ecrea.eu/event-3749204 .

If selected for a grant, you will be asked to send a proof of acceptance to the conference (forwarding e-mail of acceptance of your presentation) as well as some evidence of your PhD or post-doctoral research status (e.g. prove of enrollment or link to your home university profile).

To apply, please complete the form no later than by 15th of May 2020. We will notify the applicants by 5th of June 2020. All grantees should confirm their attendance till 15th of June.

Timeline ECC Braga

Important dates are:

• 15th June: Participants need to confirm their participation at the ECC (deadline updated)
• 15th June: Registration opens
• Early bird registration deadline will be extended, please see the conference website for updates.

For further information, please contact the YECREA management team (Johan Farkas, Corinna Lauerer and Norbert Šinković): yecreanetwork@gmail.com .