When I was approached to stand as ICA President, I thought long and hard about what it would mean to become President of the most prestigious association in our field and to make a significant time commitment to ICA in terms of roles and responsibilities over a period of some several years. I asked myself if I have what it takes to discharge the duties with enthusiasm, skill, and good humour. And I wondered why my name had been suggested as a potential nominee, not because I am so humble (my friends and colleagues know this not to be the case) but because my involvement with ICA does not reach back into the previous century, just a much more modest handful of years. In the early days of my attendance at ICA conferences, I used to say, "I'm more of an IAMCR person," but haven't said that for quite a while now. But when I think about it, actually, I've done a few things with/for ICA which make me proud, most especially working with colleagues on issues of shared concern such as internationalising ourselves (chairing the Internationalisation Committee and serving as European Member at Large) and our field, and developing (and now editing) ICA's first new (and self-consciously qualitative/interpretive in orientation) journal for 10 years, Communication, Culture, & Critique.

I naturally looked back to see what past Presidents said they would do if they were elected. And those items - internationalization, visibility of ourselves and our field in the wider global firmament, relevance of our research to policy and problem-solving - are, unsurprisingly, also on my agenda. Having worked in and then chaired ICA's Internationalization Committee, I walked in many others' footsteps in trying to find ways to actually make manifest what we constantly talk/talked about, but couldn't manage to achieve. Together with colleagues on that Committee, we did move things along. We produced guidelines on such mundane issues as the food available at conferences, which is no big deal if you eat anything and everything but a bit more serious if you observe a faith-based diet, or are vegetarian or wheat-intolerant: Such sensitivities are not just about diversity but also respect. We reinvigorated a lapsed policy which offered subscription waivers to media departments in developing countries. We pushed for translation of ICA journals, which developed into the policy of translating journal abstracts on the ICA website. We suggested a weblink on the ICA website so that regional and national subject associations could link in with us.

These small triumphs contribute to an ICA today where one-third of the membership is from outside North America, which can only be a good thing in terms of sharing knowledge and understanding, facilitating cross-cultural work which looks both within and without for good practice and bad experience. The policy of holding ICA conferences outside North America every third year is also partly a consequence of the Internationalization Committee's agenda; I can't claim the credit here, but such shifts do signal a commitment to make the "I" in ICA more meaningful than in the past.

So much for the internationalization agenda, what else do we want our Association to do/be/become in a global environment which sees The Daily Show becoming more important as a source of news than the BBC World Service or the Washington Post or The Times? Our scholarship is important to us but is it important to anyone else? I am on the editorial committee of the ICA/Blackwell book series, Communication in the Public Interest, and the kinds of proposals that come through to us speak to an agenda that is so much more than the public sphere envisaged by Habermas, symbolising exactly why communication matters. That series attempts to bridge precisely that seductive space between the academic and the K-Mart shopper, attempting to reach the informed lay reader who just might learn something which then changes her behaviour: Would that our words and our scholarship could have an influence even on one person let alone NGOs or governments.

But this is what we profess to desire, and in small but important ways, we are doing that and need to do it more. Our conferences in particular (but also our publications) are wonderful opportunities to engage with the nonacademic movers, shakers, and decision-makers, and I would like to see much more engagement with civil society and other stakeholders to whom we have much to say, and they to us. Relevance works both ways, no? In the immediate future, Singapore presents a singularly appropriate opportunity to debate key issues relating to communication, democracy, human rights, and the public, so let's reach out to our colleagues there and make both the 'I' and the 'C' matter.

Lastly, something about me. I am currently Professor of Media and Public Communication and Associate Dean at the University of Liverpool, and teach and research gender, media, and political communication. I have held visiting chairs at Queens University Belfast and Massey University New Zealand. My current work has three interrelated strands: The first looks broadly at the ways in which gender and other kinds of identity are represented and made meaningful in popular media; the second considers the relationship between politicians and journalists; a third is focused on relations between the media and the public. I have two books currently in press, one on Gender and Media (with Rowman and Littlefield) and one on the Media and the Public (coauthored with Stephen Coleman for Blackwell). I also edit Communication, Culture, & Critique, am on the editorial board of a further nine journals, and have written five books and edited a further nine. My work regularly appears in high-impact journals and I have also contributed to live media debates. I am currently commissioned to edit a new Blackwell anthology on Gender, Sexuality, and the Media. With all that, though, I still have the drive and enthusiasm to be a thoughtful and energetic contributor to the leadership team of our Association and to move us ever forward.