Conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) at UNESCO headquarters (Paris) – July 23 to 25, 2007: “Media, Communication, Information: Celebrating 50 Years of Theories and Practices”

Vivendi has defined the promotion of cultural diversity and the sharing of knowledge as specific issues within its sustainable development policy. Accordingly, the company has chosen to work with the IAMCR in organizing the anniversary colloquium which will explore these themes.

IAMCR, founded in Paris in 1957 under the auspices of UNESCO and at the initiative of the Institut Français de Presse, is a major international association which today federates several hundred researchers in the fields of information and communication.

The conference to be held in Paris in July 2007 will be an occasion to celebrate IAMCR’s 50th anniversary and for participants (800 researchers from 150 countries) to bring themselves up to date on the work being done in the multidisciplinary field of information and communication.

The chosen theme, “Media, Communication, Information: Celebrating 50 Years of Theories and Practices,” is emblematic of the issues facing the conference. The last fifty years have witnessed advances in areas that cut across the multidisciplinary field of information-communication. The work done has given rise to analytical tools used in the production and international circulation of data, news, images, and text, as well as for their reception by a range of audiences. Such issues as public space and democracy, actor networks, and agency or technological mediation and its modalities have been critically examined. In the context of globalization, changes in the market and the political economy of the media have renewed the theoretical framework of the study of information and cultural goods and services.

Today, the issues of governance and co-regulation of the media (including the Internet and information networks) are in resonance with those of populations in diaspora, cultural and transcultural diversities, and sustainable development.

www.iamcrparis2007.org