⭐ We are proud to announce the keynote speakers for #ECC2026! This year’s program brings together thought-provoking voices of communication research, offering diverse perspectives on some of the most pressing questions shaping our field today. Meet the keynote speakers: https://ecrea2026brno.eu/keynote-speakers/

The opening plenary takes the ECC26 theme "Paths, Connections, and Futures" as an invitation to reflect on communication as a discipline. Sandra Banjac, Emilija Garčin, Michael Bossetta, and Monika Metyková will discuss the shifting grounds of our field from multiple perspectives. 

Lenka Waschková Císařová will deliver a keynote lecture titled Exemplary Journalistic Actors: What Can the Core Learn from the Exemplary? The lecture offers a thought-provoking reflection on power struggles within journalism and on what the centre can learn from the periphery in both research and journalistic practice.

️ Frank Esser will present a conceptual framework of communicative democratic erosion in his lecture The Price of Democracy: How Digital Platforms Make Illiberalism Cheap. His keynote explores how political communication contributes to one of the most pressing challenges facing liberal democracies today – democratic erosion.