News

The Bureau of the Executive Board (composed of Ilija Tomanić Trivundža, John W. Downey, Irena Reifová and Pawel Surowiec) organized a General Assembly on 11-15 June 2018. The voting at the General Assembly was organised through an on-line voting tool.

The agenda was the following:

1. Approval of the minutes of the previous General Assembly (11-15 December 2017)
   
2.  Vote upon the ECREA Executive Board Report 2017
   
3.  Vote upon the ECREA Budget Plan for 2018
   
4.  Any other business
   

592 ECREA Working Members (individual members and coordinators of institutional members) had the right to vote. Each individual member has one vote and each institutional coordinator has five votes. The 145 votes cast by 73 individual members and institutional coordinators represent 12% of all possible votes.  Annual report for 2017, Financial report, and budget proposal for 2018 were approved.

All ECREA members are entitled to a 20% discount across a whole range of Routledge books if the field of media and communication studies, including books published in ECREA book series.

ECREA members can claim their member discount anytime they buy books through Routledge website by entering ECREA member discount code at checkout. The discount code is accessible on the Intranet in member-only offer subpage.

Click here to go to dedicated Routledge website and choose your books. 

We are happy to announce that the review process has finished and that 886 individual papers, 43 panels and 155 posters were accepted to ECC 2018 Lugano conference. Notifications of acceptance have been sent and participants need to confirm their participation by 1 June 2018.

We would like to thank all the reviewers and Section, Network and TWG programme chairs for all the work that went into the review process.

We would also like to provide information about a technical error that occurred at the beginning of the notification process, when for a brief period, the submitters were able to see not only their scores but also the names of the reviewers. According to the information provided to us by the technical company that runs the platform, the names of reviewers were visible for a two-hour time window to up to 130 out of over 2.000 submissions. While this does not put in question the credibility of the review process (the review itself was based on uncompromised double blind peer-review), we nevertheless want to apologise for any inconvenience that might have been caused by the unintended disclosure of reviewers.

The ECREA Young Scholars Network (Yecrea) and ECREA invite application for three grants offered to doctoral candidates participating in the yearly ECREA Doctoral Summer School. The grant is meant to encourage and support Ph.D. candidates with limited economic support and with limited opportunities to participate in international academic events. The grant will cover the Summer School fee as well as the travel costs (up to 250€).

Applicants must have been accepted to participate in the Summer School before applying. The scholarships will be awarded based on a number of criteria. The primary aim is to make it possible for young scholars to participate in the summer school, who otherwise would not have the opportunity to participate in a similar event. Evaluations will especially assess applicants’ access to financial or institutional resources. Furthermore, it will be considered in how far an applicant has opportunities to received qualified feedback by high-profile researchers and peers in a way the summer school provides. The Yecrea board will carry out the selection process. The applicant will not be reviewed in terms of academic quality, as the student should already have been accepted by the summer school committee.

Application documents

Applicants are expected to complete and submit the form ”Application Form for the ECREA Summer School attendance grant” in which they will be asked about their financial and institutional background as well as their motivation for applying. In the application letter, students should especially specify the reasons for why they should be awarded a grant. The focus should be placed on the stability of the doctoral position (financial support, time given to complete the Ph.D., etc.), the academic support (in terms of supervision and opportunities for structured feedback), international academic exposure, and all other topics that might seem relevant to the applicant. The grant will be given following a reimbursement model. 

The grant winners will be expected to submit all travel receipts in order to receive a reimbursement.

To apply, please submit the completed form to yecreanetwork@gmail.com by May 20, 2018.

For further information, please use the same contact address.

The selected applicants will be notified by June 1, 2018.

Download the application form here.

This year, ECREA will be awarding 3 grants in total amount of 3500€ for participation at the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2018. The Summer School will take place at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, from July 19 to July 27, 2018.

The call for Grant applications will be launched after 1 May 2018 on ECREA website.

The ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2018 brings together members of the European research community to this summer school in order to debate contemporary issues in media, communication and cultural studies. The main emphasis of this summer school is not on a particular theme, but on providing structural and individuated PhD-support for young European scholars, through a variety of working forms, including feedback seminars, workshops, and lectures. The summer school aims to provide a supportive international setting where doctoral students can present their ongoing work, receive feedback on their PhD-projects from international experts and meet students and academics from other countries, establishing valuable contacts for the future.

The deadline for all the applications for the summer school is April 15, 2018. For more information about the call for participants go to ECREA Summer School website.

ECREA is pleased to announce that the association recently became a member of EASSH · European Alliance for social Sciences and Humanities. The Alliance promotes the importance and value of the social sciences and humanities at all pertinent levels and through all relevant actions in Europe and beyond. 

The Alliance has recently published a position paper together with Civil Society Europe. The paper calls for an ambitious investment in FP9 for a grand challenge to achieve a People’s Union, covering research addressing EU citizens' main concerns.

The paper focus on three main points:

• The need for a cluster with attention to People's Union
  
• Few examples of areas of interests in the cluster: Democracy, Inequalities, Culture and Art, and Education
  
• The importance to finance this cluster with a comparable budget to all the other clusters. This research not only is relevant to EU citizens but also addresses two of the Programme's priorities: gender balance and wider inclusion of Eastern European scholars

EASSH responds to the Consultation on EU funds in the area of investment, research & innovation, SMEs and single market.

Focusing on the EU for Research and Innovation, EASSH supports the Lamy's report claim to double FP9 budget. Research today is 'an essential good and deliver tangible results for EU citizens'. For advanced economies like Europe, investing in research is crucial.

Read the paper

We are happy to invite you to participate in the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2018 that will take place at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, from July 19 to July 27, 2018.

The ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2018 brings together members of the European research community to this summer school in order to debate contemporary issues in media, communication and cultural studies. The main emphasis of this summer school is not on a particular theme, but on providing structural and individuated PhD-support for young European scholars, through a variety of working forms, including feedback seminars, workshops, and lectures. The summer school aims to provide a supportive international setting where doctoral students can present their ongoing work, receive feedback on their PhD-projects from international experts and meet students and academics from other countries, establishing valuable contacts for the future.

The deadline for all the applications (both consortium and non-consortium) for the summer school is April 15, 2018.

All applicants will be informed about the selection of participants before the end of April.

ECREA will be awarding grants for participation at the Summer School. More information on the grants will be available at the ECREA website (http://www.ecrea.eu). This grant programme will be managed by ECREA and not by the summer school organisers.

For more information, see full Call for participants. 

• International director: Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
  
• Programme directors: Fausto Colombo, Simone Tosoni
  
• Summer School coordinators: Maria Francesca Murru, Laura Peja
  

Contacts: 

• For accommodation, logistic and financial issues: elisa.ballerini@unicatt.it
  
• For issues related to the programme: laura.peja@unicatt.it
  
• For issues related to the website: simone.tosoni@unicatt.it
  

http://www.comsummerschool.org/

We are thrilled to announce that ECC 2018 in Lugano almost hit the magical 2000 submission mark.

1599 individual papers, 55 panel proposals (including 275 panel Papers) and 39 posters were submitted to ECREA sections and the Temporary working groups and Networks with open calls.

We have received abstracts from over 60 countries spanning 5 continents and look forward to what promises to be a truly diverse and international conference.

In addition, ECREA Networks and Temporary Working Groups will host a series of invited panels and 10 special panels will specifically address the conference theme “Centres and Peripheries”.

The proposals will now be reviewed and we would like to thank all the reviewers for their effort in advance.

Next deadlines:

• Notification of Acceptance: 7 May 2018
  
• Participation confirmation deadline: 1 June 2018
  

http://www.ecrea2018lugano.eu/

The ECREA 2018 International Organising Committee has decided to extend the deadline for submissions to the 7th ECC. Submissions can be made until Friday, March 2 2018, midnight.

With this extension we want to express our solidarity with our fellow communication researchers in the UK who are currently on strike over pensions cuts. #UCUstrike

We hope that soon an agreement that values and acknowledges the work of academic staff will be reached. The ECREA 2018 Local Organising Committee aims to put working conditions in academia on the conference agenda and to use the 7th ECC as an arena to debate this issue. We wish we could do more!

Conference Local organising committee announced keynote speakers for ECREA 2018 (31 October - 3 November 2018, Lugano):
 
José van Dijck is Distinguished University Professor at the Utrecht University (The Netherlands).
Eszter Hargittai is Professor and Chair of Internet Use and Society at the Institute of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich
Lina Dencik is Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC).
 
You can join the discussion about the event on Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag #ECREA2018

Proposals for individual papers, panels, and posters can be submitted to one of ECREA Sections, Temporary Working Groups and Networks through the ECREA 2018 submission platform until 28 February 2018.