News

New Section, Network and Temporary Working Group representatives have been elected to the ECREA Executive Board.

It is with great pleasure that we announce the election of representatives of networks, sections and temporary working groups to the ECREA Executive Board.

Networks’ Representative
Tereza Pavlíčková is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies at Charles University in Prague and Vice-Chair of Young ECREA.

Sections’ Representative
Göran Bolin is Professor in Media & Communication Studies at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden and Vice-Chair of the Mediatization section.

Temporary Working Groups’ Representative
Michael Harnischmacher works at the Centre for Media and Communication at the University of Passau, Germany, and chair of the ECREA Journalism & Communication Education TWG.

Now available - UPDATED map of events taking place in 2017.

We have prepared an overview of conferences and workshops, organized by ECREA Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups.
Download NEW ECREA 2017 Event Map (PDF) here.

The ECREA Young Scholars Network (YECREA) and ECREA invites applications for two grants for doctoral students participating in the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2017.

The grants are intended to encourage and support PhD candidates with limited economic support and with limited opportunities to participate in international academic events. The grants will be awarded to two students who have applied and have been accepted to the summer school.

Each grant is in the amount of 800€ and will cover:
- participation fee
- partial travel refund (up to 240€)*

If selected students are not members of ECREA through their institutions, the grant will also include one year free individual ECREA membership.

*Please note that students who receive ECREA grants will not be eligible for travel refund from the Summer School organisers.

Application procedure
1. Student needs to complete online application to Summer School through http://ecreasummerschool.org/ by 1 April 2017.
2. Student need to submit a separate application for the grant by 1 April 2017.
The grant application should include 1) application form and 2) motivation letter.

Applicants are expected to complete and submit the application form in which they will be asked about their financial and institutional background as well as a motivation letter.

You can download grant application here.

In the motivation 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 PhD, 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.

To apply, please send the completed form and motivation letter to info@ecrea.eu by 1 April 2017. For further questions, please use the same contact address. The selected applicants will be notified by 15 May 2017. If no grants will be awarded, the call may be repeated for students that were accepted to Summer School in late May 2017.

Selection criteria
The grants 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. A jury consisting of the YECREA management team and former Summer School students will carry out the selection process. Only applications of students, who were accepted to the Summer School will be processed. Incomplete applications will not be processed. The applicants will not be reviewed in terms of academic quality.

We are happy to invite you to participate in the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2017 that will take place at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, from July 24 to August 4, 2016 (12 days).

The ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2017 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.

International director: Nico Carpentier
Programme director: Fausto Colombo
Summer School coordinators: Simone Tosoni, Maria Francesca Murru, Laura Peja

HOW TO APPLY

There are two options to attend the Summer School:

For students who have been selected by the members of the Summer School consortium (http://ecreasummerschool.org/institutional-coordinators.html), the summer school will provide:

• accommodation for the whole duration of the summer school, including breakfast
  -welcome and farewell dinner
  
• WiFi access at the summer school venue
  
• summer school materials (including 2 books)
  
• coffee during the breaks
  
• lunch from Mondays to Fridays
  
• partial reimbursement of travel expenses (between 0 and 1999 KM: maximum 275 EUR per participant; 2000 and more KM: maximum 360 EUR per participant)

Payment of a registration fee of 560 Euros is required for consortium participants.

For all the other students, the summer school will provide:

• accommodation for the whole duration of the summer school, including breakfast
• welcome and farewell dinner
• WiFi at the summer school venue
• summer school materials (including 2 books)
• coffee in the breaks
• lunch from Mondays to Fridays

Payment of a registration fee of 660 Euros is required for non-consortium participants.

The total number of students will be limited to 44, half of them selected by the consortium members.

The working language of the summer school will be English; therefore, a sufficient understanding and ability to express oneself in this language is required.

CREDITS

The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Faculty of Political and Social Sciences) acknowledges the Summer School activities with 10 ECTS for the participation in the full programme (including the supplementary activities). Furthermore, six of the best students’ presentations and all abstracts of student projects will be published in the Summer School Book.

DEADLINES

The deadline for applications for the summer school is April 1, 2017.

Applicants from consortium universities and from affiliated partners of the summer school must have their application approved by their institutional coordinators before submitting their application to the summer school. Also the applications from consortium university applicants must be received by the summer school before April 1, 2017.

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

ECREA GRANTS

ECREA will be awarding two grants for participation at the Summer School. More information on the grants will be available at the ECREA website (http://www.ecrea.eu) after 20 February 2017. This grant programme will be managed by ECREA and not by the summer school organisers.

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Apply for the Summer School

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Stage One

When applying, each interested student is expected to fill out the application form on the Summer School website. Prior registration on the website is necessary (http://ecreasummerschool.org/registration.html). Uncompleted applications will not be eligible for the selection process. Applications can only be submitted via this website.

The application form includes:
1. a 400 words abstract of the PhD project
2. a time table of the PhD project, indicating the present status of the project
3. a short CV according to the provided forms.

The deadline for submitting the application is April 1, 2017, 23:59 hours (UTC +1). Notifications of acceptance will be sent before the end of April.

Stage Two

In second phase, students whose abstracts are accepted will be expected to fulfil the following requirements:

1. To write 10-page (3000 words) paper on their PhD project as a whole and to upload it on the website. The 10-page paper should be a report of the student’s ongoing doctoral research and not a conventional conference paper or a report of findings. Rather, it is expected that the student will briefly present the focus of the research and then take up aspects of the research process: methodology, theory and practical issues on which he/she would like to receive feedback (deadline: May 28).
2. To write a set of questions (maximum 1 page) with questions or problems that students would like to be discussed during the workshops. This one page needs to be part of the same Word/PDF file that also contains the 10-page paper (deadline: May 28).
3. Based on the abstracts and titles of other student papers, everyone is expected to choose up to 3 papers they would be interested in being a respondent (deadline: June 15; further details will be provided after selection).
4. Additional registration at the Università Cattolica website and payment of the registration fee (deadline: 1 June; further details will be provided after selection).
5. At the start of the Summer School, students have to have a 10-minute seminar presentation ready, covering the main points of their work. Each student is also expected to actively participate in the discussions of their own and other people’s work. In order to ensure maximum benefits of the seminars, everyone will have to read all other participants' papers before the Summer School begins.

SELECTION PROCESS AND CRITERIA

In respect of the selection of doctoral students from consortium universities, each one has appointed a summer school coordinator (http://ecreasummerschool.org/institutional- coordinators.html). The summer school coordinators are responsible for promoting the summer school within the consortium partner institution and to other academic institutions in their country. Consortium partner universities and departments are well-established and of best reputation in the field of media and communication, and have leading scholars in their faculties (see a list of previous lecturers http://ecreasummerschool.org/past-lecturers.html). All participating institutions of the summer school have experience in local, national and international cooperation. The departments have institutional contacts with higher education institutions within their own country and abroad, and well-established doctoral programmes. The consortium partner institutions and their summer school coordinators are fully autonomous in selecting their PhD student(s).

The selection of doctoral students from other institutions are based on a review process organised by the executive committee of the summer school. This process is open to all PhD students (including students from the consortium universities not selected by their institutional coordinators). As already specified, each candidate has to submit electronically a) a 400-words proposal of his/her PhD project, b) a time table of the PhD project, indicating the present status of the project, and c) a CV (work and study history). This application will be subjected to a double blind peer review, coordinated by the summer school local organisers. Based on this review, the executive committee of the summer school will select the participants.

For both pathways, the selection criteria are identical:

• quality of the PhD project, assessed in relation to its i) theoretical approach, ii) methodological standards and iii) potential for innovation;
• the progression of the PhD project (projects in a “middle phase” are strongly preferred);
• the relevance of the aims and objectives of the PhD project within communication and media studies.

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

ECREA is deeply concerned about continuing suppression of academic freedom and mounting pressures on autonomy of universities in Turkey.

The actions against universities and academics in Turkey begun in the aftermath of the July 2016 failed military coup with forced resignations, large-scale firing of academics (including restrictions of their re-hiring), limiting the freedom of expression and movement and implementation of the ongoing climate of fear.

Last week alone, 330 academics from 23 universities were fired, among them 16 staff members of University of Ankara Faculty of Communication, which has for example now lost 25 academic staff members since September 2016.

The intervention also greatly affected students as many programs, courses and thesis supervisions can effectively no longer be continued.
According to news and our sources, many of the fired academics were signatories of a 2016 petition ‘We will not be a party to this crime!’ which condemned military operations in Eastern Turkey while others were academics who criticized social, economic, political and cultural policies of the current government.

ECREA strongly condemns this and other actions against Turkish academics. Suppression of intellectual freedoms and fundamental human rights, such as freedom of expression, cannot lead to building of democratic, just and prosperous societies. ECREA also condemns the fact that political action against lecturers results in damaging students who can under no circumstances be made responsible for actions or beliefs of their lecturers and supervisors.

ECREA therefore calls upon Turkish authorities to nullify past decrees and acts of political discrimination against academics and refrain from further interventions which would limit academic freedoms and autonomy of universities and contribute to perpetuation of the climate of fear.

In the light of this, ECREA would also like to express its continuous support to our Turkish members and colleagues.

The ECREA Temporary Working Groups (TWGs) are fora for discussing topics and disseminating knowledge in sub-fields of media and communication research. TWGs have the same remit as ECREA sections, but TWGs will only be established for a term of 4 years. After the end of the term and upon request of the Chair of the TWG, they can be renewed by the Executive Board for a maximum of 4 more years, or they can be granted the status of a Section.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE PROPOSAL? 
A proposal needs to have the following elements: 
1/ an accompanying letter (2 pages), which explains why a new TWG is desirable. The following issues need to be addressed in this accompanying letter: 
a/ the significance of the subfield covered by the proposed TWG for the field of communication and media studies; 
b/ the indicators of the importance of the subfield (the existence of journals, courses, degrees, learned societies etc.); 
c/ the expertise of the proposed chair and two vice-chairs within the subfield covered by the proposed TWG. 
2/ the name of the proposed chair; 
3/ the names and agreement of 2 proposed vice-chairs; 
4/ an aims and objectives document, describing the formal objectives of the proposed TWG (examples can be found at the ECREA website - http://www.ecrea.eu --> in the “thematic sections”, “TWGs” and “networks” area); 
5/ the modus operandi document, stipulating its internal rules (see also http://www.ecrea.eu for examples).

Incomplete proposals will be rejected automatically.

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT? 
The full list of requirements is available on the ECREA website, in the Bylaws.

This is the summary of requirements:

•   a TWG needs to have one chair and two vice-chairs; 
•   the chair and at least one of the two vice chairs need to have a PhD; 
•   all need to be (or willing to become) ECREA members; 
•   regional and gender balance needs to be respected; 
•   they need to agree to organize as TWG, one panel at the ECC (from 2018 onwards) and another event in the years when there is no ECC; 
•   they need to agree to send in a yearly activity report to the ECREA section, TWG and network coordinator; 
•   they must agree to collaborate with other S/TWG/N and the Executive Board; 
•   they need to accept that TWGs are always an inseparable part of ECREA.

WHAT TWGs AND SECTIONS ALREADY EXIST? 
The overview of the Sections and TWGs can be found on the ECREA website: 
see Sections and TWGs.

A significant overlap with existing Sections and TWGs needs to be avoided.

WHAT ARE THE RULES TWGs MUST ABIDE BY? 
An overview of ECREA’s rules on TWGs can be found in the ECREA Bylaws (especially Title IV), accessible online at: http://www.ecrea.eu/about/statutes#ECREABylaws.

WHAT IS THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS? 
Proposals for new TWGs need to be sent to the ECREA section, TWG and network coordinator (by email) before 28 April 2017.

WHAT IS THE PROCEDURE FOR APPROVAL? 
The proposals will be evaluated by the ECREA Bureau and Board, after consultation with the existing ECREA Sections, TWGs and Networks. The approval procedure is expected to last 6 months.

TO WHOM SHOULD THE PROPOSAL BE SENT? 
Proposals for new TWGs can be sent by e-mail (attachment in .rtf, .doc or .pdf format) to the ECREA Section, TWG and Network coordinator, John Downey, at sections@ecrea.eu.

Questions related to the call can be sent to John Downey at sections@ecrea.eu and j.w.downey@lboro.ac.uk.

June 14, 2024

ECREA’s Executive Board, Advisory Board, and Ethics Committee have been discussing the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories since Hamas’ attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians on October 7th 2023 and Israel’s response to that attack, which has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of civilian lives. We have also been closely following the recent actions of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in applying for arrest warrants for both Hamas and Israeli political leaders on May 20th 2024 and the International Court of Justice in its deliberations on whether or not Israel is committing acts of genocide in Gaza. We note that the ICJ ordered Israel to stop its offensive on Rafah on May 24th 2024.

ECREA is, first and foremost, a European learned society that seeks to support the field of communication in Europe and those working in it. ECREA has limited resources and competency to intervene in cases beyond this. When the Executive Board does make a public statement we obviously hope that the relevant authorities will listen and moderate their behaviour (although there is, to be frank, no evidence of this) but we do so primarily to offer solidarity to our members who may be pleased to know that they have not been forgotten or ignored.

There have been many significant conflicts and events outside of Europe that ECREA has not taken a position on, including many that have been scandalously ignored by European mainstream news media (for instance, the ongoing Ethiopian civil war). For the sake of moral consistency, if ECREA takes a position on Gaza we should also have taken positions on previous conflicts (including that in Israel and Palestine in 2014), should take positions on other ongoing conflicts, and on future ones. Otherwise, we could be rightly accused of valuing the lives of one group of people over another based largely on the prominence of the conflict in Western public spheres, which, as we know, tends to be related to the interests of, and conflicts within, European elites. 

Unsurprisingly and understandably, ECREA as an organisation has struggled to reach a consensus about the appropriate way to respond to the conflict: what to say (if anything)? what to do (if anything)? We do agree though that this is an extremely important issue, which should be discussed. The International Organising Committee of the ECC have decided, therefore, to organise a special panel on the conflict at our forthcoming conference in Ljubljana in September that will give conference participants an opportunity to present contrasting perspectives. This will include debate about whether and, if so how, learned societies, such as ECREA, should respond to similar conflicts in the future.

On the advice of the Advisory Board and cognisant of the recent ICC and ICJ decisions ECREA’s Executive Board have decided that ECREA should not co-operate with universities that directly, publicly, and actively support the actions of either Hamas or the Israeli state (evidence of which would be an unambiguous public statement via official communication channels supporting either the actions of Hamas or the Israeli state with respect to the conflict). The Executive Board recognises this is a complex and evolving situation, that universities have contrasting degrees of autonomy vis-à-vis their respective governments and states, and steadfastly supports scholars exercising their academic freedom irrespective of location. Scholars who work at such institutions are welcome to attend the conference as individuals rather than as representatives of their universities. This is, of course, a symbolic gesture but, as we know, symbols are important. It signals ECREA’s desire to take its distance from academic institutions that support authorities that are subject to reproach from the ICC and ICJ while upholding the principle of academic freedom.

John Downey, President of ECREA, on behalf of the Executive Board.