News and Updates from Vicki Mayer

After an exciting meeting in San Francisco, I want to write you about the state of the Division as well as upcoming efforts.

First off, we are better off than we were just six months ago in terms of membership and our collective voices in ICA. The $3 campaign urging members to join our sister divisions (ERIC, LGBT, and Phil Comm) seems to have been working to our benefit, even though we charge a bit more than $3 for membership. As you remember, we were in danger at some point of dipping below the minimum numbers demanded for divisional status (200 that is), but with the assistance and support of fellow division leaders Isabel Molina, Lynn Comella, David Phillips, Kumi Silva, Katherine Sender, and Nick Couldry, we have all mutually become stronger. This is a really important thing because ICA board members vote on such important issues as what organizations ICA develops connections with and invests in, where we host conferences, and what indeed how we should define communication as a discipline in the future. If you have not yet registered for the sister divisions above, please consider doing so. The collective cost of joining all of the divisions for a year is about the price of a martini at the conference hotel in Montreal.

Speaking of Montreal, let’s support the Divisions by attending joint-sessions and preconferences. Preconferences are an excellent way to spend a day discussing and debating hot issues in communication today (not to mention a great venue for making new friends and contacts). FSD is co-sponsoring a preconference with Popular Communication entitled “Analysing Media Industries and Media Production: an Emerging Key Area for Communication Research.” While “feminism” is not in the title of the preconference, I think its very important to recognize the feminist contributions in an area of research that historically has been masculinist in the ways that gendered labor and cultural identities, as well as feminist theory and methods have been downplayed or completely overlooked. See the longer description in the newsletter for further details.

FSD has been a leader in promoting social change in ICA. Division member efforts have led to more recognition for feminist researchers and helped push for a new journal in the association. One of those efforts, the Media Associations Project (MAP), needs assistance right now.

Started from informal discussions at the 2000 FSD business meeting about gender discrimination in media and communication departments, MAP launched through the hard work and efforts of past-chairs Cynthia Carter from the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Carolyn Byerly of Howard University, and Marian Meyers of the University of Georgia. The first MAP project coordinator Sheida Shirvani (Ohio University at Zanesville) oversaw an online survey, followed by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen’s (Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies) efforts to recruit focus group leaders to follow up on quantitative measure. In all, Wahl-Jorgensen, Tara Emmers-Sommers (University of Nevada- Las Vegas), and others have conducted several focus groups using a bi-national sample of professors, graduate students, and faculty chairs.

As they analyze this data and prepare a report on their findings, it is important to find a new coordinator for MAP. Although FSD was the lunch pad for this initiative, we would like to extend the opportunity to our sister associations (NCA and AEJMC) to lead this project through the next stages. Anecdotal evidence points to the enduring discrimination in university departments, despite the perception of equality in the popular imaginary, but we need this empirical research to corroborate our stories. Please contact me if you can help with this project!

Special thanks to Diana, Claire, Rosa, and Marian. Their collective efforts continue to keep us growing.