Dafna Lemish: ICA Presidential Candidate Statement

by Dafna Lemish, Southern Illinois U

ICA has been my academic community for 30 years-from my first conference as a graduate student in 1981 until my recent selection as ICA Fellow. Indeed, it is hard for me to imagine how my career would have developed without ICA. Thus, I am honored to be a candidate for ICA president, and do so in the spirit of seeking to insure that our association continues to serve vibrant and influential roles in our interdisciplinary field and beyond.

Over the years I have presented papers in five different divisions at 18 ICA conferences. I chaired the Feminist Scholarship Division and was active in establishing the Children, Adolescents, and the Media Division. I served on the ICA Board twice (as Division chair and as Board Member-at-Large) and served on numerous association committees (Internationalization Committee, Reorganization Committee, Steve Chaffee Productivity Award Committee, Nominating Committee, Jerusalem Conference Organization Committee). For my scholarship and leadership contributions at ICA, I was awarded the first Teresa Award for Feminist Scholarship and recognition as an ICA Fellow.

Beyond ICA, I chaired the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University and am currently Chair of the Department of Radio-TV at Southern Illinois University. I am active in various international organizations, including as a consultant for the Communication for Development Unit of UNICEF; and member of the Advisory Board of the Global Media Research Center at SIU and the Prix Jeunesse International for Children's Media.

Throughout my career I have served as a "bridge" between continents (as an Israeli working with colleagues around the world); disciplines (communication, feminist studies, education, health); theoretical perspectives (originating in both the US and Europe); methods (quantitative, qualitative, and critical analysis); as well as, between academia and industry, theory and practice. My research in the area of children, gender, and media has been dedicated to ensuring the social relevance of scholarship to the welfare of children around the world. I am founding editor of the Journal of Children and Media, facilitating international dialogue among researchers and professionals, studying the interaction between children and media in local, national, and global contexts. I have lived and worked in various positions in Israel, Europe (Germany and Denmark), and the US (in seven states). I am networked internationally and have collaborated on research with colleagues from all continents.

I bring these perspectives, experiences, leadership, vision, and skills to the following principles and initiatives I plan to advance as ICA President:

1. Continuity - I applaud the major developments undertaken by our association under previous leaderships, and strongly believe they need to be nourished and sustained over time. In particular, I stand firmly committed to continuing the development of the growing internationalization of our association (a process I am proud to have been involved in initiating as member of the first Internationalization Committee); transparency; experimentation with conference formats and contents; building ties with regional and national communication associations. I intend to work hard to build upon these achievements and to develop their potential.
2. Relevancy - At a time when higher education as a whole, and the social sciences and humanities more specifically, are being challenged, I see great value in devoting efforts to priming the relevancy of our scholarly work for all realms of life, from political systems to media industries, from health and education institutions to individuals' quality of life. We can do so by strengthening relationships with the industry, policymakers, civil society organizations and activists, educators, and other academic associations. We need to make our voices heard more in the public sphere worldwide. In this spirit, I believe our association can make significant contributions to clearing away misguided sentiments about the nature of engaged scholarship while emphasizing our immense contributions to bettering the human condition and social life by advancing dialogues on peace and conflict resolution, intercultural understanding and gender relations, and health and wellbeing, to name just a few.
3. Inclusiveness - I propose that we continue to invest in making our association a more attractive and inclusive place to newcomers, be they graduate students, media professionals, or scholars from related disciplines. I believe, as well, that we should build on the tremendous efforts to be a scholarly community that cherishes the accumulated knowledge and experience of its senior members, while seeking actively to be energized by the enthusiasm and innovation of both younger and associated members. Overall, we need to find more effective ways to mentor future generations of scholars as well as attracting and collaborating with colleagues from other disciplines.
4. Integration - With ICA's growing number of Divisions that represent and serve a wide array of specialty areas, many members have expressed concern for increasing disciplinary fragmentation. This suggests to me that we need to find additional ways to invigorate the shared arena of integrated scholarship that unites us. I plan to explore innovative ways for cross-divisional collaborations during our annual conferences as well as to create opportunities in-between conferences to revitalize our field.

If elected president, it will be my role to plan the program for the London conference in 2013. This is an excellent venue for advancing these principles, by reaching out to the cultural industries, policymakers, diverse groups of stakeholders, and our UK colleagues. London also offers a unique opportunity for dialogue between traditions of scholarship flourishing in our two biggest regional membership bases - North America and Europe - with input from our growing membership in other regions of the world as well. Indeed, I plan to invest in moving our highly successful internationalization efforts one step further by a) investigating ways to dialogue with colleagues in continents and regions that mostly remain terra incognita to our association (e.g., Central and South America; Africa; Mediterranean and Middle East regions); and b) engaging in debates on current international issues that move us towards a more comprehensive view of communication processes in the world. In so doing, if elected, I am hoping to harness my academic, organizational, and leadership experience in the coming years to help make our extremely successful association even more so.