As I am writing these lines, the midyear board meeting is taking place electronically-an opportunity for all the Division and Interest Group representatives to react to the numerous proposals made by the ICA taskforces and committees this year. These working groups have generated many interesting ideas since last August and I will be pleased to report on the results of our discussions in my next column, once the virtual meeting is completed.
I am also very pleased to announce that the respective topics of our 2012 ICA regional conferences have been defined, as have their tentative dates.
The first regional conference, titled "Communicating in a World of Norms" will take place in Lille, France over 3 days in March 2012. It will be organized at the Ecole Nationale de Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse (ENPJJ) and benefit from a 350-seat lecture center, as well as two to three rooms for parallel sessions. Cosponsored by ICA and the Societe Francaise des Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication (SFSIC, the French Association of Information and Communication Sciences - http://www.sfsic.org/), this event will be organized by the Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Information et Communication (GERIICO, the Group of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research on Information and Communication - http://geriico.recherche.univ-lille3.fr/), chaired by Stephane Chaudiron and cochaired by Patrice de la Broise (U de Lille - Charles de Gaulle, http://www.univ-lille3.fr/fr/).
This ICA regional conference, the first ICA is co-organizing in France, will constitute a great opportunity to gather several scholars from around the world by inviting them to reflect on the connection between (technological, social, political, cultural) norms and communication. Four axes will be addressed: 1) "Communicational perspectives on norms in organizations"; 2) "Visual worlds: The contribution of communication studies to visual studies"; 3) "New medias, New public spaces?"; and 4) "Communication between cultures: Another globalization." All in all, we hope that this event will help us make ICA more visible in France and other countries from Latin Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc.) and consequently increase our membership from this region of the world.
The second regional conference, titled "Building and Mapping Research Networks: Trends in Latin American Studies," will take place in Santiago, Chile from Thursday 18 - Saturday 20 October 2012. It will be organized at the Department of Communications, located on the main campus of the Pontificia U Catolica de Chile, one of the most important universities in this country. This conference, organized by Marķa Elena Gronemeyer, will constitute a great opportunity to attract scholars from around the world interested in communication studies related to Latin American topics. We are also hoping that by sponsoring this event, ICA will make itself more visible to communication scholars coming from Latin America, which will ultimately increase the representation of this key region of the world in terms of ICA membership.
It is my hope that these two events will contribute to making ICA even more international and that our association will ultimately benefit from the intellectual and scholarly contributions these two regions of the world have to offer.
