IAMCR - International Association for Media and Communication Research

About 40 people took part in the open and lively discussions on the project, with interest and enthusiasm dominating the day. There were some significant criticisms of certain aspects of the “frame” that was presented for discussion (a square grid indicating a list of actors and issues, available on the IAMCR website). Some participants found the frame too vague, some found it not inclusive enough, some criticized a misplaced emphasis or priority.

The discussion was useful for clarifying the rationale behind the framework and useful suggestions emerged concerning issues and topics to be inserted among the grid’s list of “issue areas” (such as privacy and surveillance issues, or the militarization of cyberspace, or transversal issues like gender and human rights, that cut across different cells in the grid).

There was also a rich discussion about the purpose of the project: who is it intended for? Researchers? Activists? Policy-makers? The discussion led to a sort of consensus that the exercise will be primarily a research effort, aimed at creating better understanding and critical thinking, connecting disparate research efforts, contributing to concept clarification and theory building, and highlighting in which areas research is being done and where there is a need to develop research. There was a strong shared sense that the exercise should be conducted with a view to contributing to social change respectful of social justice and fundamental freedoms and rights, with possible uses by policy activists as well as progressive functionaries and policy-makers working within an institutional setting.

There were inspiring questions and suggestions about the methodology and expected output of the project. For one thing, it was clear that no one “map” could meet all needs. Regarding the methodology and how to proceed in composing this knowledge base, several suggestions were made:

1. sharing the existent: the simplest and lowest-energy way to carry the project forward, would be to call on IAMCR members to contribute work they have done or are presently working on that could fit into any of the “boxes” of the frame. This would constitute a resource that all could then draw on.
2. ad hoc content production: a second path would be to focus on specific cells in the grid/framework and produce relevant content. An example of this more sophisticated approach was presented by Claudia Padovani, who is currently working on a research project focused on communication governance and social mobilizations in the European context.
3. stimulate a worldwide collaborative cooperation: finally, open the exercise to non-IAMCR members and scholars, from different fields and disciplinary backgrounds, inviting them to contribute to a truly collaborative platform. This path is to be kept open and discussed in Stockholm.
4. Looking to the future, it was agreed that we need a long-distance working environment to carry the exercise further between physical meetings. The existing mailing-list (globalmapping[AT]iamcr.org) will be open to all interested parties, and a number of wiki-type discussion groups will be created on the IAMCR web site for people working on different aspects of the project.
   

Please stay tuned to the working group's page on this website to remain on top of developments!

Marc Raboy and Claudia Padovani